R2
by Dawn of a New Eclipse
Summary: After the tragic death of her parents, Alyssa made a vow to them (and herself) that she would be a someone they would be proud of. In the process of a reboot, she discovered the town secret of vampires, witches, and werewolves, and once again has to do an complete overhaul of her life, this time by force. This time, as a vampire. (Second part of Reboot)
1. Bad Moon Rising Pt 1

"If you're trying to get her to eat you might want to give her something that wasn't rolling around in dirt first." Damon calls from over his shoulder as Stefan comes from catching breakfast in the woods.

Elena, who's coming by to check on the progress and to bring her a change of clothes stops and looks at the Salvatore brothers and asks, "she's still not eating?"

"It's normal," Stefan is quick to assure her.

"Especially since it's nothing something she wanted in the first place," Damon says flipping through the book that he was casually reading.

"You know you could be a little more helpful." Elena says dumping the bag on the couch next to Damon.

"I am," he says looking over his shoulder at her and sees the doubtful look in her eyes as she stares back, "by respecting what she wants."

Elena crosses her arms looking at him in disbelief, "since when has that ever mattered to you."

Damon closes his book and stands tossing it on the couch, "since I'm the only one who's in this room who hasn't force someone to turn." He leaves the room and Elena watches him with a scowl.

"He's right," Elena turns to Stefan dropping her defense stance and he walks over, "and I hate that. Now she's never going to forgive me."

He pulls her into his arm, "she will. It's just going to take some time."

"Thanks to me she has a lifetime of it."

Stefan sits her head on top on her head. "You didn't want to lose her."

"But I could end up losing her anyway."

Stefan was going to keep hope for her sake that they could turn thing around for the better impossible as it may be. He kisses the top of her forehead before letting her go and taking the cup up to Alyssa to see if he could get her to eat

He knew that it would a task in of itself since she had already made he clear that becoming a vampire was the last thing that she wanted all reason he understood. He never allowed himself to get too close to anyone outside of Elena and Lexi after he was and turned the only people he had in his life was his father and Damon when he was alive. It was the reason he talked Damon into turning. He didn't want to be alone.

It was he could so easily understand where Elena was coming from but he had hoped that she would have learned from his mistake and let her made her own decision. No one should have to be forced to live this life if they didn't want it.

She was standing by the window holding her hand out to the sun watching as it burns with a mild curiosity when he walks in. She didn't seem to have notice him or if she had she shown no signs of it. She moves out of the direct sunlight when she finally takes notice that he's there and turns around.

He sits the cup on the table and take step forward hearing a crunch sound. He looks down to that it's the water bottle he brought up just last night that she had thrown shortly after he left if the drips of blood on the wall was any indication.

"You know what's going to happen if you don't eat."

She was well aware. She had first hand knowledge of what could happen to a vampire if they don't feed and she was more than happy for it to happen to her. It was better than watching the world pass by you and you're stuck in the same place and body you're in and always going to be in.

"I know this isn't what you wanted. It's not fair what happened to you."

"You mean what your girlfriend did to me. What you let her do to me?" She uses her vamp speed and runs to him so she's standing directly in front of him. "All I ask was for you to do one thing!" She knocks the cup fill with animal blood of the table. "Don't tell Elena, and you couldn't even manage that!"

"Stefan," Elena calls from the door having ran upstairs after hearing the cup smash against the floor.

He puts himself in between the two of them holding his palm up to Elena. "Elena stay back." He recognizes the look feral look in her eyes and he knew that it wasn't safe for Elena to be around her right.

"Why?" She takes a step inside instead "Stefan what's wrong with her?"

"Listen Elena, trust me." He speaks to her while also keeping his eyes on Alyssa. "I need you to go and wait for me downstairs." It was the first time that the two had seen each other seen Alyssa's transformation and he knew that it wouldn't be a good idea for them to even be in the same room especially with Alyssa's refuse to eat.

Elena wasn't sure what was happening but she trust Stefan and so she nodded and does what he says.

"Hey look at me," Stefan tries to get his attention off of Elena so he could begin to get her to calm down but doesn't make any sudden movements. "It's okay. You're going to be okay." He wasn't sure if what he was saying or if any of is coaching was going to get through to her until he saw her face slowly start to turn normal. "Breath through it," he says taking a chance to take a few more steps towards her. She had calm down by the time he was standing in front of her and he realizes a little. "You're going to be okay."

"I know." She says giving him a reassuring smile and with a firm nod and tossing him aside and running out of the room. He immediately got to his feet and ran behind her. Damon had her trapped in between his arms when he reaches the living room and Elena is holding her throat otherwise un-harm.

"I'm gone two seconds," Damon says to Stefan as he joins Elena side checking to see if he's okay. Alyssa almost slips out of Damon's hold but he reestablishes his grip. "Get her out of here."

Stefan takes Elena by the arm and takes out of the house. When he's sure they're far enough away Damon lets around and gets punched in the mouth for no other reason than she was upset and he was there.

"Feel better?"

"I will when she's dead."

"You're upset."

"No Damon, upset is what I was when our dog died. I am way passed upset." He walks over to the bar and pours them a drink. "I have all this anger inside of me at Elena, at Katherine, at everything and I don't know what to do with it."

He hands her a glass, "getting drunk helps."

She sits down on the couch emotionally drained after the passed seventy two hours she had. "You were drunk when you killed Jeremy, I wouldn't say it helps." She downs the glass despite what she says.

He sits down beside her realizing something. "I never apologized for that did I?"

"Didn't think you apologized for anything."

He looks at her with a serious expression, "there's a first for everything."

She leans back on the couch taking a look at her empty glass. "I don't know how you did it," she looks over at him, "forgive Stefan. Every time I think about what she did I get angry all over again."

"So don't think about it."

"It's not that simple."

"How do you think I was able to spend all those years knowing Katherine was in that tomb and knowing I couldn't get her out until the comet. By focusing on something else."

"Like making your brother life miserable?"

"Tormenting Stefan was just a bonus," he says with a pleasant smile. "No, I mean finding other things to entertain me. That's what you got to do, find something to take your mind of it."

She thought about what he was saying and there was something that came to mind. If she was going to spend the next however many centuries as a vampire she might as well find something productive to do with her time. There was still the Lockwood family secret that needed to be figured out. There was only one person she knew that could help with that.

"Thanks for coming, Ric." Damon let him in. "Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, bourbon? Bourbon in your coffee?" He lead him to the living room.

"Elena mentioned you needed my help." After filling Damon in on the plan, they discussed it with Elena and Stefan after Alyssa made it clear that she was done trying to kill Elena, for the time being.

"We were hoping you could help shed some light on the Lockwood family." Ric stops and looks at Alyssa was sitting on the arm of the couch where Damon had taken a sit at.

He gives her a once over trying to find any signs that she was different then the girl he came to know but he didn't see anything that would speak to her being dead. "Elena told me what happened. How are you holding up?"

"Well I haven't killed anyone yet so and all I say it's been an excellent three days."

He doesn't know whether to take that as sarcasm or if she was being serious so he just took his seat in the chair across from them. "You say you want to know about the Lockwoods but I don't get why you think I would know anything."

Damon takes over the answer, "Well, you wouldn't. But you're dead, not-dead vampire wife might." Isobel did a lot of research on the town when they went to Duke together and there was bound to be more information on the Lockwoods.

Ric understood what they were getting at and why they needed his help. "Isobel's research here in Mystic Falls rooted in folklores and legends but at the time I thought much of which was fiction."

"Like that amazing vampire story." Well they all knew that wasn't a myth so it might turn out the whatever else Isobel dug up wasn't either.

"Aside from vampires, what else did she find?" Alyssa wanted to hurry the conversation along. She didn't trust herself to be around Elena for too long even though she was doing as Damon was suggesting and focusing on something else. Being that close to Elena was making her a little antsy and even Ric wasn't starting to look a little tasty.

"The lycanthrope." His answer one no one would expect and all of Alyssa supernatural movie watching taught her the more popular version of that name.

"Wait, like werewolves?" She asks.

"No way, impossible, way too Lon Chaney." Damon wasn't buying it but even he couldn't deny that they've seen a lot of things they were impossible even for them.

"Is it?" Stefan wasn't as sure as his brother that they didn't exact. Most people didn't believe vampires exist and yet there were three under one roof as they spoke.

Damon was more into believing what he saw rather than he heard. "I've been on this planet one hundred and sixty some odd years, never came across one. If werewolves exist, where the hell are they?"

That was a good question, especially since vampires and werewolves were known to be enemies of vampires. Wouldn't they've been able to sniff each other out or else or at challenge each other to a death match.

"Why do you suspect the Lockwoods?"

Damon goes about answering what should have been already obvious but she guessed he was a little quick to catch on then the rest, "Because vervain didn't affect the mayor at Founders' Day but the Gilbert device did and it affected his son Tyler."

Stefan adds what he saw just a few a days, "And at the school carnival his uncle Mason exhibited inhuman behavior when he fought with one of the carnival's workers. It suggests it's some sort of a supernatural entity."

"We were hoping that something in Isobel's research could help us figure it out what it is." And by we, Alyssa meant them, since she technically couldn't go out in the daytime and she didn't exactly trust herself to be around people.

"Well, all her things are still at Duke. I mean her office is still there. She's technically still missing."

"So can we get access to it?" Rick wasn't sure he wanted the memories that came with digging all that stuff up, especially since he was trying to put it behind him. "Ric, we need to know what we are dealing with. If this wolfman thing is true, I've seen enough movies to know it's not good. It means Mason Lockwood is a real-life Lon Chaney and that little Tyler punk may just very well be Lon Chaney junior, which means Bella Lugosi, meaning me, is totally screwed."

If that were true, Alyssa knew Damon was going to stop at nothing to prove if what they thought was true about the Lockwoods but also find a way to kill him and that didn't bode well for either of the Lockwoods.


	2. Bad Moon Rising Pt 2

"Thanks for this Ric," Elena walks him to the door and Alyssa stands back so she wouldn't be cast in the sunlight when the door open.

Stefan comes over to Alyssa. "I'm going to go check on Caroline. Are you going to be okay?"

"Like I have a choice," she says pointing to the light. "It's not like I can go anywhere."

He walks out the door and Damon stops in his place.

"Go, I'll be fine." He heads out the door with Stefan Elena and Rick.

She turns and looks around the room to find something that will occupy her time. She wasn't sure how long Stefan would be gone but she knew Damon's road trip with Elena and Rick was going to take over four hours alone with the drive there and back. It was no telling what they were going to find when they get there and how long it was going to take to look through all the information that Isobel had obtained over the years.

What she did know was she was going to use the new found freedom to do a little snooping. She hadn't gotten a chance to check out the full scope of the place.

She already knew the basement was the cellar. The dining room, conservator, living room, and kitchen were on the second floor. She grabs her her bag on the way up taking inventory of what was upstairs. She counts a total of seven bedrooms upstairs, Stefan and Damon's included.

Stefan's bedroom was her last stop on the tour and she tosses her bag on the bed and takes a look around. The last time she had been in his room she had been discussing the tomb vampires and his past with Damon.

She had been curious about what laid behind the glass case and walks over to take a look-pulling the first book she saw. She opens it and discovers that it was his journal.

"Finally, something interesting." She takes the book and finds a seat cracking it open and reads it.

She's halfway through the century when she hears the door open and goes to downstairs seeing Stefan with Caroline.

"I guess you were able to convince Bonnie to make a daylight ring if she's not on flames." She stops in front of them crossing her arms.

"I did."

"And?"

"Oh you wanted her to make you one too. See I wasn't sure because you weren't planning to be one in the first place."

"I'm going to take assume that you're joking."

"Wait," Caroline finally begins to put it together.

Alyssa sees the confusion on her face and decides to help her out before she hurt herself thinking, "yeah I'm dead. Katherine killed me too. But she wasn't expecting me to come back." She turns to Stefan. "Now about my ring."

"I don't have a ring, but I do have this," she recognizes it the minute he pulls it out of his pocket. "Damon thought you might want it back."

She gave him back the necklace that he gave to her filled with vervain as protection. She takes it with a bit of nonchalance. "If it's the only thing." She starts to put it around her neck but stops.

"It's vervain free. Damon removed it before he gave it to me," Stefan says after noticing her hesitation and she clips it on.

"So when are you going to teach me how to hunt I'm starving?" Caroline whines.

"Wait, you're teaching her, Caroline Forbes how to survive on a Stefan Salvatore diet? Oh this I got to see."

She follows Stefan and Caroline to the woods where Stefan is explaining to Caroline the basics to how he survives.

He starts with something small.

"So what I do when I see the rabbit?" Caroline asks as she trails behind them.

"Chase it, catch it, feed on it."

Alyssa thought that was kind of self explanatory.

"Isn't killing cute defenseless animals the first step in becoming a serial killer?"

"Well, you sort of skipped serial killer and went straight to vampire. Caroline, if you're not serious about all of this I think you should tell me."

"No I am. Look, I swear that I am okay?," Caroline stops and faces him and Alyssa could sense she was going to go into one of her famous meltdowns so she finds a tree to rest against and waits. "But it's just...I haven't been in the sun for days and everyone is at the swimming hole having fun and Matt is there! And he finally told me that he loved me but I have been blowing him off and now you want me to eat bunnies and I'm kind of freaking out okay?!"

Stefan starts laughing.

"And now you're laughing at me."

"No, no, I'm not laughing. None of this is funny, trust me. It's just that…"

"What?!" She exhales in frustration.

Stefan calms himself enough to explain, "When someone becomes a vampire, all of their natural behaviors get sort of amplified."

Caroline doesn't get, "What do you mean?"

"I mean...as a human I cared deeply for people, how they felt. If they were hurting I felt their pain and I felt guilty if I was the one who caused it and as a vampire all of that got...magnified."

Caroline still doesn't seem to get it and Alyssa leans up from the tree and walks over to them, "What he's saying is that were insecure, neurotic control freak when you were alive and now your a insecure neurotic control freak on crack."

"Well, I wasn't gonna say it like that."

"But that's basically what you are."

"So then what does that make you?" Caroline asks and she didn't know how answer that because she never gave it much thought.

She turns to Stefan, "I don't know Stefan what does that make me?"

He didn't know how to answer that because as he came to realize she was a complex person and there was no telling who you would get moment to moment which is what made her unpredictable and dangerous, "Let's hunt okay? And then after that we'll go to the swimming hole."

"Really?" Caroline says with a gleeful smile.

"Yeah. Matt is the closest connection that you have to your humanity and I think that being around him is a good thing."

"Okay."

She goes off to find something to hunt and Alyssa places her hand on Stefan's arm to stop him.

"Are you sure she's ready for that, to be around people? And by people I mean Matt."

"Matt's good for her, he'll help her feel normal and she needs that right now."

"I'm all for her hanging on to her humanity but not at the expense of Matt."

"We have to at least give her a chance."

"You can give her the benefit of the doubt I'll be keeping my eye on her."

She catches up to Caroline Stefan soon afterwards and after a few unsuccessful attempts Caroline finally catches her prey. Alyssa couldn't stand to watch it so she turns her back but it doesn't help with the sound.

"Next time I say I wanna come," she says when they make it back to the boarding house. "Don't listen."

"Can we go to the swimming hole now?" Caroline asks growing rather impatient.

Alyssa gives him a look reminding him of the warning she gave back when they were hunting but he stood by what he said, Caroline needed to stay connected with her humanity and Matt was the best way of doing that.

Alyssa, however was a little skeptical but she'd try his way for now but she was going to keep her promise to keep an eye on her, which is exactly what she had been doing since the moment they arrive at the watering hole.

Mason was the first thing they saw when they got there. He was passing by as they got out of the car. They share a look and Alyssa turns to Stefan after he's pass, sharing a look of their own one that Caroline happened to pick up on.

"Why are you looking at him with your serious vampire look?"

Alyssa leaves him to answer any questions she might have on the Mason front and walks over to Matt. She hadn't spoken to him since the night of the carnival because she wasn't sure what to say. She wasn't even sure if it was safe to be around him but she had controlled herself so far and she was hoping to continue that.

"Hey," she approaches him with a smile which he returns with his own also surprise.

"You're alive."

Alyssa took that to mean that he was referring to not hearing from her for a few days and not the fact she was on her deathbed, "I am. I'm sorry about being M.I.A. I know I promised I wouldn't do it again but there was something I had to take care."

"Yeah, Jenna told me, you were doing some extra credit work for Mr. Saltzman."

That was the story Elena was telling to explain why Jenna hadn't heard from her while. The project involved earling morning and late nights. It was the only cover story she could think of. "Yeah, I was but I am done with that now and I'm here."

"Yeah I saw that, with Caroline and Stefan no less."

"Elena had something to take care of so I told her that I'd keep Stefan company and Caroline came by the house hoping to catch her but Elena couldn't come and I don't think Bonnie is either so she tagged along. Why aren't you in the water?" She says hoping the change the subject before he could ask anymore questions and poke a hole in what she had said.

"It's not waterproof." She says holding his cast.

"Right," she spots Caroline out talking to Stefan, "listen, I know this is going to sound weird but I need you to be careful around Caroline." She sees the confused look on his face and she understood. It was coming from left field. "She's different, I can't really say more than that just don't be alone with her okay, at least for a while."

Before he can ask anymore, Caroline joins them and Alyssa walks away.

"I heard that," Stefan steps in stride with her as she walks back over to the car.

"And?" That was of no consequence to her. "I know you're okay with giving her a chance but I'm not willing to bet Matt's life on it." But she was willing to compromise, "But I'm not going to stand in the way either, not if Matt can keep her natural instincts from taking over." The last thing they need was another rouge vampire.

Stefan knew that it was the best he was going to get out of her. Her personality dictated that and now that she was a vampire the need to protect the people she cared about was was enhanced. Along with some other potentially dangerous qualities that she posses.

"I think that tree can stand up all on it's own," Tyler approaches her from where she had been standing the entire time keeping an eye on Matt and Caroline.

"Go away Tyler, I'm not in the mood."

"You've been standing here the whole time. Why don't we take this party somewhere else?"

"I said go away," she says looking him directly in the eyes. He turns around and walks away. It takes her a minute to realize that she had just compelled him without meaning to. It made him go away and so she didn't think on it.

She turns back to Matt and saw Caroline had approached him and they were now talking.

"I saw that," Stefan says coming to stand beside her. "You compelled him."

"I didn't mean to. He wouldn't go away and I desperately wanted him to. It won't happen again."

"It will if you don't learn how to control it."

Control it, she didn't even want it. Nor did she understand why she spent a perfectly warm day at the lake being a wallflower when it suddenly hits her, "this is my naturally behavior, being a protector," she turns to Stefan, "I always think about my friends and my family first, constantly worried about them and now that I'm a vampire, that need to protect them just doubled ten fold. I'm going to spend the rest of my undead life playing watch dog instead of living my life."

"No one said it was going to be easy."

"Easy, this is impossible. I never wanted this and now I'm stuck with it all because of…"

Stefan phone's and he takes it out of his pocket, "Elena,"

"Of course."

Stefan answers it, "Hey."

"Hi. Listen we've learned some stuff here and I know it's gonna sound crazy but I

wanted to fill you in."

"What's up?"

Alyssa turns to him so she could fully listen in on the conversation as she begins to tell Stefan everything they found on werewolves.

"I don't know what that means or if we should even believe it but it's a full moon, Stefan. After what you saw Mason Lockwood do…"

Stefan looks at Alyssa. "I'll be careful."

"There's one more thing."

"What is it?"

"According to the legend, a werewolf bite can kill a vampire."

Alyssa turns to the last place she saw Caroline with Matt and saw that both of them were gone. Stefan notices the same thing and checks the perimeter visually but doesn't seem them.

"Listen, I gotta go." He says trying not to alarm her and Alyssa jogs over to the last place that she saw them, by Matt's car. "I'll see you when you get home, okay?"

"Okay."

Stefan hangs up and calls Caroline but she forgot her phone in her bag, in Matt's car. Alyssa hears it ringing and pulls it out of the car. Stefan comes over to her and she shows him her phone.

"It's a full moon tonight Stefan." Alyssa tells him both knowing what that meant.

"I know. We'll split up and look for them." He points to the direction he wants her to take which is opposite side of the lake. "You take that side I'll check this one, get back to the car if you find her." He says jogging away from the car.

She nods and looks the direction that Stefan told her to take. She jogs into the opening that leads you into the woods before using her vamp speed the rest of the way once she was out sight from in one who could see her.

She stops and listens when she doesn't see them after a few miles. She hears Matt calling out to Caroline in a panic and she runs into that direction and stops when she sees them. Caroline has bit his neck and his taking a drink and she runs over to them and pulls her off him pinning her against the tree. She holds her forearm against her neck keeping her there.

"Caroline stop! Look at me!" She does as she asks and she helps her through it until her face is normal again. She lets her go seeing that she's calm.

Caroline looks over at Matt just as he faints from the loss of blood. "Oh my god." She starts towards her but she stops her and grabs her.

"Caroline, Caroline, look at me," she turns her towards her, "We need to get out of these woods now. We need to leave."

They hear a growl.

"What was that?""

"You and me, we're gonna run. It's going to follow us; we need to lead it away from Matt." Caroline wanted to know know more but she didn't have time to explain. "Caroline look at me, you need to run as fast as you can. Do you understand me? Go, go!" She pushes her to get her to running and she follows after her until she comes to a stop at the old ruins forcing her to do the same.

"Wait!" Caroline turns to he wanting to know what was going on and what they were running from. "What is it?!"

"It's a werewolf! He will try to kill us and he can!"

Tyler comes out of the cellar.

"Hey! What are you two doing?"

"Tyler get out of here!" Alyssa says worried about her friend. Yes even after everything that happened between them she still considered him one.

"Why?"

Before she could answer the werewolf rushes into Caroline. She falls on the floor, the werewolf is on her. Alyssa rushes on the werewolf with her powers and pushes him. It turns on her and she doesn't move a muscle.

"No!"

The werewolf looks at him seeming to recognize him before taking off.

Alyssa helps up Caroline and Tyler looks to them for answers, but he wasn't going to get any because Alyssa and Caroline needed to get back to Matt.

She calls Stefan when they got back to Matt truck watching as Caroline compels him. Stefan shows up after she's done making him think that an animal attacked him after warning him about the vervain in his ring.

"What are we going to do about Tyler?" Caroline asks as she joins them.

"I took care of it." Stefan says. Alyssa had told him where he could find Tyler so that he could handle it himself since she was new to the whole compulsion thing and she wasn't strong to make the lie stick.

"Maybe I should get Matt to start drinking the vervain instead of it just being in his ring. It'll keep you from being able to compel him but it also to keep you from drinking his blood." Alyssa says since it hadn't been that effective against getting fed on.

"I can't believe I hurt him. He is the one person on this entire planet that I never wanted to hurt."

"It's not going to get any easier." Stefan warns her and also says, "you're just gonna have to work that much harder."

"I shouldn't be with him, should I?" She asks Stefan, "Because if there is any danger…"

"I think Stefan's the last person to make that kind of decision for you."

Stefan agrees, "If I had follow my own advice, I would walked away from Elena a long time ago."

Caroline asks, "You ever think you should have?"

"I know I should have, I just can't."

Alyssa didn't know what it was like to be with a person that you could lose control with and hurt, but she did know what it was like to feel something for someone she shouldn't. So on that, she sympathizes with Caroline and also could agree with Stefan. It was hard walking away from someone you know you should, but can't.

* * *

"Looks like you've had a hard a day as me," Damon says as he sees Alyssa stand in the living room with a drink watching the flames of the fireplace.

He pours himself a drink. "That would be the understatement of the century." She turns to him, "how did you road trip go with a Elena?"

"Very productive, I learned a lot," he takes a sip from his drink and Alyssa couldn't help but notice the double meaning behind him "learning a lot" but he didn't elaborate so she wasn't going to ask. "How was your first day in society as a the undead?" He sits in the chair.

"Let's see," She joins him on the couch and he raises her legs sitting them on his lap. "I saw Caroline go Ozzy Ozbourn on a bunny, then I spent the rest of the day standing guard over Matt so Caroline doesn't use him as her personal snack machine because apparently being protective is in my DNA and it's worse now that I'm dead and I spent the night running from a werewolf who was trying to kill me. But it's all just a normal day in Mystic Falls."

"Yeah, we're going to have do something about Mason Lockwood." He removes her legs off his lap, "but first things first," he disappears out of the room for a second and she sips on her drink until he returns with a glass filled with a red substance.

"Damon," she sits up straight and he comes to sit beside her.

"I know, it's immoral and beneath you, but your a vampire. No matter how it happened, you're one of us, and if you didn't want to be you wouldn't be wearing that." He points to the necklace, "but it's your choice," his sits the cup down on the table and gets up walking out of the room.

She watches him go before looking at the cup. She had two choices. She could drink what was in the cup and go on living the rest of her life as a vampire or take off the necklace and walk into the sun. After the day she had, there was only one choice she could make. She picks up the glass and drinks it.


	3. Memory Lane

Chapter 7

"Damon, told me you were leaving," Stefan walks into the room Alyssa had been staying in while she was getting use to her new life.

"Came to convince me to stay?"

"As much as I'd like you to, I think I know better than to try to convince you to do something you don't want."

"And as much as I would like to, I can't hide out here forever" she says putting her stuff in her back and pulling the string. "It's time I get back to the real world." She didn't want to tempt fate by leaving before she was ready but she really felt that it was time. She swings the bag over her shoulder, "or my new version of the real world. But before I go, I think I might have come up with a way to prove that Mason Lockwood is the werewolf who attack Caroline and I last night."

Damon who was just coming to see if she was all squared away overhears her. "Do tell,"

Alyssa looks over Stefan shoulder as he turns around shoulder as he turns around. "Weren't planning on leaving without saying goodbye were you?" The edge of her lips curve into a smile and he stops in front of them. "What's this I hear about a plan to out Mason Lockwood that I was in no way in on? Kind of hurt that I was left out of this plan BTW. Here I thought we were starting become partners."

"See that right there," Stefan points to Damon as the reason he was weary of her plan, "it's what I'm worried about. The two of you going off and doing something to could put all at risk." He was starting to learn that when it came to forming plans, her and Damon tend to think a lot, and any scheme Damon came up with always came with casualties. Alyssa smirks at Damon who has the same mischievous look on his face which only further worries Stefan.

"Were vampires living in a town that has a it's own hunting party and we're the targets. Then there's our resident werewolf who also wants to kill us and can. So I'd say the fact that we even exist puts us at risk. My plan helps with one of those."

Stefan was still worried about what that might could be but he was willing to hear her out since no one else came up with a plan yet.

"Being stuck in this house with literally nothing to do but think got me to thinking. 6fv Mason in grew up in this town so I'm betting that he knows Jenna. It also would stand to reason that Mason and Jenna went to school together. He hasn't been back home in a while so what better way to see if Mason's our furry little friend then by setting up a reunion to between the two of them. What better way to get reacquainted then in a social gathering when drinks are flowing and people's guards are down." She knew first hand that people were more susceptible to spilling secrets when they were plastered.

Stefan looks at Damon at they seem to silently agree that her plan might actually work. Now all that was left was to figure out how to convince Jenna to go along with it. Luckily, shad a pretty good idea how to do that.

She plops down at the chair in front of Ric. He looks over at Damon who pulls out a chair next to her and sits down with skepticism, closes his book knowing his work had officially come to an end.

"What do you want now?"

"Just a tiny little favor," Alyssa answer makes his eyes once again go over to Damon before settling them back on her. "We need you get Jenna to throw a party, nothing big, just a few friends." She sits her hands on the table and lean forward, "as long as one of them is Mason Lockwood."

He looks over at Damon wondering what they were up to and if he'd put her up to whatever scheme they had planned for Mason. He wasn't sure he wanted to be apart of it, "Why don't you want Mason there?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"Why can't you just ask her yourself?"

"She's going to want to know why and I'm going to have to come up with a lie and it's just all too complicated," and frankly, she didn't want to have to go through all that trouble when there was a simpler way, "but if you suggest it, it won't look as suspicious. You just pretend like you want to get to know one of Jenna's old friends who can give you all the dirt on her since you're dating now. Took you long enough by the way but considering your previous choice in a woman I'd see why you be a little hesitant.."

He looks at Damon. "You put her up to this didn't you."

"No Ric, this was all her idea. Frankly, I'm a little upset I didn't think of it myself."

He looks at them with uncertainty and sits up. "I don't want to get her involved."

"She won't be." She sits her hand on top of his, "Ric, I promise, I won't let anything happen to her."

He must have saw something in her eyes that convinces him to go along with their plan.

"Good job with Ric," Damon compliment as they walk onto the Gilbert porch. Alyssa texting Elena that they were there so she could invite her in.

"Yeah well you don't always need to compel someone to get what you want." She put her phone away as the door opens and it's Jenna on the other side instead of Elena.

"Aunt Jenna," she wasn't who she was expecting.

"You don't have amnesia," she's going to lean against the door crossing her arm, "that's good."

"I know I've been MIA lately but if you invite me in you know since you're blocking the door," she covers, "I will explain everything."

Jenna eyes her skeptically before leaning up from the door, "Come in."

She steps forward placing her foot inside as a test before walking in fully.

Damon attempts to come in behind her and Jenna blocks his path, "Good night Damon."

He glances at her and Alyssa knew it was best that he left because she already had enough to explain for why she had gone missing for the last few days. "I'll talk to you later."

He gives her one last look before walking away.

Jenna shuts the door and turns to her and Alyssa anticipates what she was going to say. "I Know what you're thinking, but me being gone had nothing to Damon. I really was helping Ric out. I ran into Damon outside."

"Yeah, Elena told me about you helping out Ric but she didn't give any specifics."

Alyssa knew she was fishing for details and luckily she had already came up with the perfect excuse. "It had to do with Isobel."

She sat her down in the kitchen so they could discuss the specifics of it. When she thought of what she wanted to say to Jenna, she thought that it would be best if she included part of the truth.

Jenna sat the cup of tea in front of Alyssa as she stood in front of her, "explain."

"Well you know how Ric took Elean to Duke with him so she could find out more about Isobel." That was the cover story they told for the road trip to see what they could discover about werewolves. Jenna nods. "There was a reason for that, Ric thought he saw Isobel a few days before the founder's day."

"Wait, so Isobel's alive?"

"He wasn't sure so he asked me if I could help him find out." She was hoping that Jenna would be so shocked by the news that Isobel was back that she wouldn't see the obvious holes in her story. "He thought since I grew up here and most people trusted the Gilbert I could ask for around for him, see what I could find out. He couldn't ask Elena because he was afraid of getting her hopes up. He knew that I would be as invested in finding out the truth as he is for Elena so I agreed."

"Was Ric right? Did he actually see her? Is she alive?"

She didn't want to have to lie to Jenna she was telling so many already she didn't want this to be another one of those but she knew she had no choice. She promised Ric that she wouldn't let her get sucked into their life so she had no choice but to lie.

"I kept finding a lot of dead ends. Some people said they saw her other's couldn't be sure. So I told Rick what I found and afterwards I suggested that he give up looking for her. If she is alive than she obviously doesn't want to be found which should show him how she felt about him and their married. I told him he should focus on the future and what's in front of him or he might miss out on something amazing. I guess he must have listened."

Jenna process everything she had heard and Alyssa takes a sip of her tea and she was watch her turn over what she just heard in her head. She decides to change the subject before she could ask her a question she hadn't been prepared to answer.

"So not for the first time, I've notice that you weren't as friendly with Damon tonight as you are with Stefan, is that a reason for that?"

"I know his type."

"And would that be the Logan type, the Sean Type or the Jesse type?"

"I know that you care for him," she says rolling her eyes. "But-"

"You don't think he feels the same way," she knew that the warning about Damon would be coming soon because of what she saw between him and Elena. "You don't have to worry about me Aunt Jenna I'm well aware of who Damon is." She says standing up and walking out.

* * *

"I thought you'd like to know Rick talked to Jenna," Alyssa says from her her closet as she talks to Damon on her phone. "He convinced her to throw a barbeque." She pulls out one of the outfits that she brought when she went shopping with Jenna. It was more feminine than what she was use to wearing but she wanted to try something new.

He walks into the living room and pours him a drink. "I just got to figure out a way to get invited."

"Easier said than done," she sits the white cropped top she had chosen to go with her red jeans on the bed and walks over to the draw she kept her underwear in and pulled out a blood bag. "Jenna's not a fan of yours what with you kissing Elena who actually turned out to be Katherine but she doesn't know that." She pokes a hole in the top of the bag and begins to drink.

"Well lucky for me I can be very charming." He hears her drinking from the blood bag. "Don't you think it's a little risky drinking stuff out in the open. What if Jenna catches you."

She listens in for Jenna finding exactly where she was in the house. "She's still in the shower. Besides if she does, that'll be Elena's problem to solve." Elena opens the door pausing when she sees her drinking out of the blood bag. "And she just walked in, and giving me that look that says she doesn't approve."

"Tell her I said hi."

She hangs up and looks at her, "What?"

She shuts the door and walk in. "You're still upset?"

"Why would I be upset," She answers her question with one of her own and shrug, "because I had to be invited into my own house, or that my food now comes from a blood bank or without a necklace spelled by your witchy best friend, I couldn't step outside without my skin bursting into flames?"

"I know this isn't what you want," she walks closer to her but stop when she sees the look on her face. "But I had to think of Jeremy and Jenna. Jeremy's loss so much already."

Alyssa cross her arms looking at her with disbelief, "did you really do this for Jenna and Jeremy or did you do this for you?"

She gives her a confused look she doesn't bother answer her question.

"This was my life Elena, my decision, not yours and I made the decision that I could live with. Was is selfish yes, but it was still my decision and you took that away from me and I will never forgive you for that."

Elena looks at her hurt over her words. She slowly backs away and turns around walking out.

She tosses the blood bag on the dressers feeling guilty for what she said but she didn't regret it.

She walks downstairs after getting dressed to see Jenna getting ready for the barbeque.

"I hope Ric's manning the barbecue." She popped a chip in her mouth. "Cause you really shouldn't be allowed around food."

"Haha, so Elena left out of here pretty upset."

"We had a little disagreement," was her response though that was putting it mildly. She couldn't believe how upset she had gotten just by the mere presence.

"I thought you guys were getting along better."

"We were," she didn't know if or when she was going to be able to get over the she was feeling, "we just had a difference of opinion. I'm sure we'll get over it soon. Oh just a heads up, I invited Damon."

"Why?"

"Because we're friends and he wants to get on your good side and you haven't exactly been subtle about disliking him." She says taking a chip that she had just poured into a bowl.

"Maybe if he learned to keep his lips off Elena."

"Right," she forgot about that, "you saw that."

"Yeah."

"I admit he definitely shouldn't have done it," even though it was Katherine he kissed but he didn't know that so that would be irrelevant. "But Damon's, we'll he's complicated and definitely an inquires taste."

"I'm not sure he's a taste that I want to get use to." She takes a Tupperware filled with hamburgers outside just as Ric walks in.

"Hey, Elena told me you were coming home. How are you holding up?"

She turns to him leaning against the counter. "You mean with the whole being dead thing? I'm totally fine with it I especially love the part where I'm going to be sharing a meal with a man who can turn into a wild dog every full moon and has a lethal bite."

"Sorry I asked," he took the steaks out to be grilled. She stays in the kitchen eating chips when the doorbell rings and Jenna answers it. She hears her talking to Mason. She turns away from the kitchen door leaning against the counter and pulls out her phone.

 _Guest of honor just arrived….Think it'd ruin the barbecue if I pull his spine out through his nose?_

She hit send just as Jenna walks in the kitchen with Mason.

"Look who's here." She turns as Jenna enters with Mason keeping her hand down at her side.

"Finally," she smiles, "the guest of honor has arrived."

"Mason I don't know if you meet my niece Alyssa."

"Yeah, we've meet. It's nice seeing you again."

"You too, and under better circumstances than the last time we met. Your brothers funeral. What did you think I meant? "

She looked down at her phone as she at text message comes in from Damon.

Her lip curled into a smile when she read the message.

It'd be rude to do it and I'm not there to help.

"Damon?" Jenna guessed from her reaction to the text.

"Yes," she grabbed the bowl of chips, "and you promised you'd be nice." She took the bowl with her when she went to answer the door.

"Alyssa." She says taken about. She wasn't the Gilbert she expected to answer.

"Caroline, you actually seem surprised to see me."

"I am," Alyssa gives her a curious look. "I mean Elena said that you were staying with Stefan and Damon."

"Well now I'm back and I would invite you in but I'm no longer a living member of this house and asking aunt Jenna would only look suspicious."

"I'll just wait out here for Elena."

She takes one step back and Alyssa takes one forward and Caroline takes two back. Curious, Alyssa takes two forward and Caroline takes three back.

"Caroline," she asked curiously, "are you... scared of me?"

"No," she says despite taking a step back.

"You are scared." She knew she shouldn't have been so pleased with the idea but she kinda was.

"You were going to let Damon kill me."

"But I didn't, and isn't that the most important part." Caroline didn't seem to feel the same. "Okay fine, I'm sorry that I didn't try and stop Damon from killing you earlier." She didn't sound so convincing to her own ears. "It was nothing against you. It was Elena but I realize taking whatever issue I had with her out on you wasn't fair and I am sorry."

Caroline seem to believe that apology more than the first and because it was the truth and their issues were widely known against their small group of friends. "Elena told me how you-"

"Became the biggest walking contradiction." She cut her off from what she was going to original say. "Katherine might have killed me but Elena turned me into this so as far as I'm concerned she's as worse as Katherine, only more so cause I can't kill her. Or maybe I could," she smiles at the worried look she sees on Caroline's face at her statement and walks back in the house.

"What did you say to Caroline?" Elena stood over Alyssa who was sitting on the couch in the living room reading a life and style magazine waiting for Damon.

"You're going to have to be more specific," She turns the page of her life and style magazine. She looked up, "I say a lot of things to Caroline." She goes back to reading her magazine. "Bet I can guess you which one you're really angry over." "

"We're you really going to let Damon just kill her?"

"I don't get why everyone's so hung up on that." She flips the page again. "I saved her at the end." She flips it again, "but do I get credit for that?"

"She told me it was because of Viki," She looks up at the mention of her deceased best friend's name. "I knew you blamed me for that but to take it out on Caroline just so you could hurt me."

"She's alive isn't she, more or less, which means that I grew some semblance of a conscious which you seem to be accusing me of not having. If I didn't, I would have snapped you like a twig the minute I saw you and not feel a thing," she stands up so that she could look her in the eye. "I'd watch my step if I were you, cause I still might."

Elena gets a troubled look at her sister's words and Alyssa couldn't help but smile at the slight fear she was seeing in her sister's eyes as she left getting a slight sense of joy from it. Her smile only widen when she saw Damon standing in the hallway with the pie that he had picked up from the grill.

"Damon," Elena exits the living room stopping for a just a brief moment before she hurry past Damon back outside. Alyssa satisfaction only grows.

Damon didn't miss the look on Elena's face as she left or how she could seem to get away fast enough, "everything okay." He turns to Alyssa who merely shrugs.

"Just you normal sister stuff," she replies and before he could question it further she took the pie from him. "Aunt Jenna is in the kitchen with the guest of honor. Why don't you say we go have ourselves a little fun huh." She walks into the kitchen with the pie not waiting for him to answer.

He watches her with skepticism in his eyes but follows.

* * *

After a filling meal they settle down to play some friendly games one of which included pictionary where all of Damon's clue happened to involve wolves. The last one had been a wolf in a tutu and Mason was the first to guess the answer was dances with wolves.

"Subtly really isn't your strong suit." Alyssa says to Damon as they walk in the kitchen after a break in the game to serve dessert. She goes into the China cabinet and pulls out the set of knives to cut the pie and looks at it curiously.

Jenna comes into the kitchen, "There you are." She says looking over at Alyssa. "Isn't this fun?"

"Yes," Damon says even though Jenna had been talking to her niece, "thank you so much for inviting me."

"Did I have a choice?"

Alyssa turns with the knife given her a pointed look to remind her of her promise to be nice.

"I know what you must think about me." Damon says and Jenna gives him a look of her own.

"No, you don't. You've never dated you; I have dated many you's."

"I'm a work in progress."

Alyssa changes the subject from Damon's boundary issues to the question that has been on her mind ever since she saw the set of silverware. "Hey Jenna, is this real silver." She asks still examining the knife.

"Yeah, it was your grandmother's set."

Alyssa looks at Damon both seeming to share the same thought and she stuck the knife in the pie just as Mason walks in.

"Mason," She pushes the pie towards him so he could take the first piece, "why don't you start us off? You are the guess after all."

"Sure." He takes it with his hands, but doesn't touch the knife much to their dismay. "I apologize, I'm an animal."

Alaric tries to throw the conversation into a new topic seeing the irritation on both Damon and Alyssa's faces and knew that that couldn't lead to anything good. "So Mason, you and Jenna never dated?"

"She was always lost in Logan Fell land." He answers.

Jenna replies with, "my first mistake. Mason was a catch; he had girls lining up."

Alyssa turns to him with a look of curiosity. "Really?" She tilts her head in curiosity. "I sort of pegged you for a lone wolf."

"You're young I'm sure you're going to have slain more than I did women when it's all said and done."

"You know you might be right," she says as she begins to leave the kitchen, "and I already have my next victim in mind."

"What happened to playing nice?" Rick asks Alyssa the moment he'd gotten a chance to get her alone.

"Well I haven't killed him," she says flipping through a magazine from a home improvement store, "so I'd say I've been plenty nice. Don't worry Rick I've got myself completely under control."

He wasn't sure how much of that was true but he could only hope it was as he left.

Mason walks in but she doesn't take her eyes off her magazine. "Jenna just brought out "Guitar Hero". Might be time to mutiny!"

"Well, I just happen to like "Guitar Hero". So you, my friend, are barking up the wrong tree."

"Okay. Enough with the innuendos, you win, you're hilarious."

"Well I do try."

"You don't think I know what this barbecue is about and I'm here to tell you I'm not your enemy."

"You tried to kill me."

"That was a mistake."

"Really?" She says doubtful as she crosses her arms. "Let me guess, no obedience school?"

"I'm serious. Let's not spark some age-old feud that doesn't apply to us."

"You know you're right. We should," she held out her hand. "Shake on it."

Mason was hesitant at first but reaches out to shake her hand.

Damon walks in on the exchange, "Mason you're up."

He walks out of the Kitchen and Damon turns to Alyssa taking the silver cake knife out of her hand that Mason hadn't seen. "You were going to kill him right in the kitchen?"

"Relax, he would have been gone before Jenna saw him." She sees him give her a concerning look. She grabs her magazine off the counter and throws out as she leaves the kitchen, "Be careful, your Elena is starting to show."

* * *

"That was better than I thought," Jenna says after their guest had left and Mason made plans to catch the game with Ric. Damon left shortly behind him.

"It did. Thanks for letting Damon stay. I know he isn't one of your favorite people."  
"His company wasn't horrible."

"That suspiciously sounds like he's growing on you." She took their empty dishes into the kitchen sitting in the sink.

"Well he's charming that's for sure which makes him trouble."

"I'll be sure to stay on the lookout. Think you can handle the cleanup from here there's a few things? I have to check on."

"Sure." She eyes her curiously. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Damon would it."

"No, Stefan actually. He didn't show up today which is surprising enough considering how joined at the hip him."

"Kind of like you Damon."

She ignores her aunts observation and continues, "I get that Elena is worried and I just want to make sure he's okay."

"Seems like Damon isn't the only Salvatore that's grown on you."

"Stefan's been a lot of help to me and I'd dare go as far as to say call him a friend and I need to go check on that friend so don't wait up."

"It's not very polite to eavesdrop." Damon turns his attention to Alyssa who had tracked him down. She sees Elena get up from the table with Stefan and watch her walk away. "That looked unpleasant." She turns to Damon and sit down. "I guess that's why you were eavesdropping. What's happening there?"

"Katherine. She paid Stefan a visit today."

"So that's what kept him. So what did she want other than to cause trouble?"

"It's Katherine she lives for mind games."

"It's seems to be working too." But she didn't come there to discuss that. "How did it go with Mason?"

"It was a bust. The silver did nothing."

She took the glass that is sitting in front of him. "And I guess calling animal control is out of the question. I'll just have to find another way to rid of our little problem."

"We were right," Alyssa stops at Elena's door on the way to her room. The doors cracked and she can see Stefan inside with Elena. "Katherine got to her. She was hanging on to every single word."

"It won't be long before Katherine gets a play by play." Alyssa starts to realize that their fight was just a ploy.

"I wish I was wrong but I know Caroline too well. It was so obvious that something was up today."

"You're not wrong. It's pure Katherine. She's always finding somebody to do her dirty work."

"I think Damon was listening to us fight too. Are you gonna tell him that it wasn't real?"

"The only way Katherine is gonna believe it is if everybody believes it. That's the best way to make her think she's getting what she wants."

"All this...just to get you back."

"It's not why she's here, okay? No matter what she says, I know her. Katherine doesn't care about anybody but herself, she never has. She's incapable of love. She's here for another reason."

Alyssa walks away from Elena's room with a smirk after witnessing their conversation. If they were going to pretend to fight she was going to cash in on it.


	4. Killed or be Killed

She stops by Jeremy room after leaving Elena's door and pokes her head in. "Got a minute?"

He removes his headphones and turns to her. "Came to schedule more family bonding time?"

She smiles softly and leans against the doorway, "No." She's sits on his bed across from him. "Looks like I'm going to be sticking around longer than I thought. Since I am I thought you should know something."

"I didn't know you were planning on going anywhere."

"It wouldn't have been by choice. But, plans changed, and since they have I wanted to be the one to tell you. The Lockwood's have a family a secret. Well at least Tyler's uncle does." She walks into the room. "He's a werewolf."

He watches her as she walks over to his desk. "Werewolves actually exist?"

"Makes senses," she turns from looking at the sketches on his desk to him, "they're natural enemies are vampires. Vampires exist why not wolves."

"I can't believe Tyler Lockwood is a werewolf."

"We're not sure about that yet. The only thing we know for sure is that Mason Lockwood is."

"It should be enough easy for us to figure it out."

She stops fidgeting with the pencils on his desk to make it clear. "There is no us. Elena and I agreed that we wouldn't keep things from you anymore. That doesn't mean that I want you involved in it." She picks up the scissors that were in the cup of pencils. "We didn't however agree on one issue but I think you should know."

She opens her palm and run down the scissors down the edge of the scissors down the middle of her palm.

Jeremy jumps up from his chair, "Alyssa, what the hell?"

She turns her hand over to him as it began to heel and she watches the look of amazement in his eyes. Jeremy grabs her hand once it's completely healed unsure of how she was able to do that.

"I'm a vampire Jer. Trust me," she says taking her hand from his before he could get upset. She had been so against him turning she didn't want him to think it was her choice. "It wasn't by choice."

"How?"

"The usual way. I died with vampire blood in my system. When I woke up in transition this was the last thing that I wanted."

"It's why you wanted to spend so much time together. Why Stefan told me all his secrets. You told him to because you choose to die."

"I did. It's selfish but after losing mom, dad, and Vicky, I couldn't imagine spending the century like this while I lose everyone and everything I know. But as I said it wasn't my choice."

"Was it Damon? I swear I'll kill him."

"It wasn't Damon surprisingly he respected what I wanted. He didn't like it but he respected it. I made the mistake of pissing of Katherine and she killed me for it. What she didn't count on is the vampire blood in my system."

"But you didn't want this" he says trying and failing to put the pieces together. "So if it wasn't Damon then-"

"It was Elena Jeremy. She knew this wasn't what I wanted but she fed me her blood anyway. Elena did this to me and I hate her for it but I get it. If it had been you I would have done the same thing." She didn't want him to be a vampire but she didn't want to lose him either.

"I know this is a lot to handle. I probably shouldn't have even told you but we agreed no more secrets. I want you to know just because I hate Elena for what she did, it doesn't mean you have to. It's between us okay. I don't want you holding it against her. She was only doing what she thought was best. Now get some sleep we'll talking more in the morning."

She walks out of him with a smirk on her face. Just because she couldn't kill her, didn't mean she couldn't make her miserable.

She knew Jeremy would never wouldn't let what she told him go and after telling him not to be mad at him she knew that's exactly what he would be.

He couldn't help himself. It's just who he was and they were always the closest siblings. She knew it was going to cause a problem between them and even though part of her knew she was wrong the part of her who wanted to get back at Elena was bigger and didn't care.

So when she heard about Stefan and Elena's fake fighting she decided that maybe it shouldn't be so fake after all and to hit her on all fronts. Damon did say focus on something else.

She knew Caroline was doing Katherine's dirty work and although she had her own issues with Katherine what they wanted aligned up so she thought she would help out.

She approaches Caroline at the Mystic Falls Historical Society Volunteer Day at the public while she was alone.

She was still a little scared of her given what she remembered about the night of the carnival with her not doing anything to stop Damon from killing her. She knew she could use that to her advantage.

So when she passes by her on the pavilion she was painting she saw that as her opportunity to strike a little deal.

* * *

"Hey blondie," Caroline stops as she hears the nickname Damon gave to her. Alyssa walks away from the crew she was working with and walks over to her. "We need to talk."

Caroline turns to her and Alyssa could still see some of the fear in her eyes. "I can't right now." She turns to leave but she puts a hand her to stop her and hands her paint and brush to a passerby.

"Now you're free. Look I know what you're doing with Stefan and Elena." She says not wanting to beat around the Bush. "I know you're trying to get them to purposefully fight to break them up."

"I don't know what you're talking."

"Please, you are about as transparent as a jello."

"Don't tell Elena," She pleads in desperation.

"Relax, I'm here to do the opposite. I want to help."

"Why?" She asks suspiciously.

"Because I know Katherine has you doing her dirty work for and if you don't succeed well I'd hate what that meant for you more importantly I don't want to see anyone I care about get hurt. She's already left her mark on us I don't want that happening to Jenna or Jeremy so consider me an ally."

Caroline wasn't sure about her help but she was terrified of what Katherine might do to her if she didn't agree to help and walks away.

Alyssa smiles and turns around to get back to work and runs into Damon.

"Now would you be trying to cause problems between Stefan and Elena."

She rolls her eyes and walks away from him knowing he had been listening. "I thought you would be happy that there fighting. It means you can swoop in and save the day." She goes back to plants that her team was responsible for planting sporadically throughout the park. "That is what you want isn't it?" She turns to him, "to have Elena all to yourself. I'm helping you get your wish."

Mentioning Elena got him to thinking, "You know we never talked about what happened that night, what you said." He said somber.

She kept her back to him when answering. "You can't possibly hold something I said when I thought I was dying against me." She wipes her hands on the old pair of jeans with holes she wore because she knew she'd be working. "And I'd like to forget I said anything."

"I can't."

"Why not?" She turns to him after all the plants were in small plastic cups. "I'm not the Gilbert sister you're in love with and just because you won't admit it to yourself doesn't mean it's not true. You are in love with Elena. I knew it before I stupidly allowed myself to...but I know it and I'm trying accept that so if you value whatever friendship we have you'll forget I ever said anything. I know I'm trying to."

She hands the plants of to the purpose who can't to collect and walk away.

* * *

"These go by the swings?" Alyssa hands a crate full of flowers to a volunteer as sees Stefan make his way over. "Can you take over? I'll be back." She says to another volunteer beside her and goes to meet him. "Look who's finally free the clutches of his crazy doppelgänger ex."

He scratched his eyebrow "You heard about that huh?"

"You mean how Katherine acted as a one man Trojan horse, yeah." She crossed her arms and ask. "That old broad has something up her sleeves and I don't like not knowing what that is."

"Speaking of not like something, Elena filled me in on your behavior."

"Way to change the subject Stefan. Are you here to tell me what a bad girl I've been and now you've come to punish me?"

"I'm being serious."

"When aren't you being serious?"

"It's going to take a while to get a handle on your emotions." He allotted to say instead of answer.

"While we're one that subject of handling, what are we going to do about Mason."

"Nice try on the change of subject but right now I'm worried about you."

"I know threatening Elena was wrong and it's going to take me a while to find my balance. I promise to work on my temper blah blah blah. Now can we talk about Mason. Damon trying to kill him was an epic fail. I'm guessing he's not really appreciative of that either meaning he's going to retaliate."

"The first chance he gets." Stefan agrees.

"All the more reason to take him out before he does." She walks towards Damon to discuss just how to do that. He was over by the lemonade stand with Mason.

"Would you like some lemonade?" a little girl offers to Damon.

"Please tell me your were just bounding." Stefan says when he walks up and Damon takes a sip of his lemonade but spits it out and starts coughing. gasping, "Vervain! Vervain!"

Alyssa looks around for Mason and sees him collecting trash. Damon grabs a bottle of water, rinses his mouth out with it, and spits it out.

"I'm gonna kill him." He looks at Stefan. "I'm not listening anymore of your "give peace a chance" crap. He's dead!"

"Okay." Alyssa's turns her eyes back to Stefan surprise at how easily he agrees. "I don't like it. He's making threats. He could expose us. We need to put him down."

"I saw him picking up trash." Alyssa tells them. "He must be going into the woods."

Damon looks to Alyssa as he stands up.

"I know." She says knowing he was going to tell her to let them handle. "Go."

They walk off and she waits for them to return but when she saw the sheriff head off into the same direction she followed feeling something was up. She stayed a safe distance away but listens.

She hears Damon talking to mason. "Don't look so surprised. You knew this was inevitable. Go ahead, run. I'll give you a head start."

Gun shots rang out and she vamps runs and See Stefan and Damon are on the ground. She starts to go over to help but see the sheriff Liz and some of her deputies arrive.

The sheriff thanks Mason and injects Damon and Stefan with vervain. She stays back and follows them to the old Lockwood estate ruins. The deputies are carrying Stefan and Damon.

"It's down the stairs to the left." Mason instruct and she follows them down.

"Careful." The sheriff says. The wooden bullets and vervain won't keep them down for long. "What is this place?"

"Old slave quarters," Mason answers, "from the original Lockwood house."

Sheriff Forbes says again, "Thank you, Mason. I appreciate all you've done. We got it from here."

"You're gonna kill them, right?"

"Yes. That's why you should go. Here it's the Council, not the law. You can't be a party to this. It's for your own protection."

"Liz, I don't care about…"

"Yes but I do, and I'm not asking. Goodbye Mason.

"Don't take any chances." He leaves out of the gate and Alyssa grabs him slamming him up against the wall.

"You want to kill me go ahead but you won't be able to stop Carol from killing one of them."

"Maybe you're right, but I can still do this." She slammed his head against the wall with enough force to knock him.

She walks on the other side of the gate. She sees the sheriff and and a deputy standing over Damon and Stefan with a steak. "Sorry sheriff, I can't let you kill them."

"Get her out of here."

The deputy advanced towards her but she vamps speed in front of him and bites into his neck. Once he was so weak he couldn't stand, she let him go and he dropped to the ground.

"Like I said," she says wiping her mouth, "I can't let you do that."

"She's one of them," the deputy says pointing up his gun and starts to fire but she runs before he can and knocks him against the wall forcing the gun out of his hand.

"Now what I'm going to do with you?" She starts towards the sheriff and Elena runs down with Caroline.

"Don't hurt her." Caroline says stopping in front of Alyssa.

"She knows our secret Caroline."

"She's my mom."

"Is she? Well let's see what she thinks of her little girl now."

She grabs the the gun and shoots Caroline with a wooden bullet in her shoulder and she goes down screaming.

Elena puts herself in front of Caroline.

She scoffs. "Like that's really going to stop me from shooting her."

Carol saw Caroline dig out the bullet with her hand and watched as it healed with a horrified look on her face.

Alyssa pulls back the gun. "Looks like the secrets out.

* * *

Later, Damon and Stefan awake. Damon is feeding on one of the deputies and then he checks on Stefan. Elena is sitting with Stefan. Caroline and Liz are sitting quietly in different parts of the cell.

"You need to drink some deputy blood."

"No. I'm gonna be fine. It's just gonna take a little bit longer."

"Damon's right," Caroline says, "If there's ever time to break your diet…"

Elena jumps to his defense. "He said he didn't want it, okay?"

"This is a most unfortunate situation."Damon says. "Two deputies dead and you.  
He looks at Liz. "What am I gonna do with you?"

"You won't tell anyone, will you? Mom? Mom? Please." Caroline pleads. "Look, I know that we don't get along and that you hate me but I'm your daughter and you'll do this for me, right? Mom, please. He will kill you."

"Then kill me."

"No!"

"I can't take this. Kill me now."

Damon bends down to look her in the eyes. "But you were gonna drag it out so painfully." He suddenly grabs her. She stands up quickly.

In secession Caroline, Stefan and Elena says,

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

"Damon, don't!"

"Damon, please!"

Damon puts their fears to rest by saying, "Relax guys. No one is killing anybody." He looks at Liz. "You're my friend." He looks at the deputies. "We've got to clean this up."

"I got it." Alyssa volunteers.

* * *

Damon walks into his room after speaking to Elena to find Alyssa waiting for him.

"I heard what you said to Sheriff Forbes about Caroline." She had just been coming in when they were downstairs with Carol. They were keeping her until the vervain was out of her system and she could be compelled to forget their secret.

"I think your right, Caroline is who's she's always been," she handed him a glass of whiskey that she had poured,"but you aren't." She hands him the glass and he accepts it. "You could have killed her but you didn't. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. Speaking of dogs, Mason's still breathing.

He sits his drink down. "Not for long." He grabs a new set of clothes that aren't ripped. "He isn't as strong as he is when he's all fur and fangs or he wouldn't have gotten the sheriff involved. So he won't try again until there's a full moon and he can do it himself. We just got to get to him before he tries again."

"Now that Stefan's on board we're a united front."

His brows knotted, "which is a first."

"I've been wondering about that myself. He seemed pretty quick to jump on board when he was trying to advocate peace. That's not going to happen now but I can't help but wonder…."

Damon could see the wheels turning in her head but she didn't share what she was thinking just wordlessly left the room.

She went to see Stefan. She had a plan in mind that she deviated from but that could come later or maybe she could kill two birds with one stone.

Stefan turns to her when she walks in. "I heard Elena leaving. I hope everything's okay." She says walking into the room. "You guys seem to be fighting a lot lately. I wonder where she falls in on the whole Mason issue."

"She understands why we need to-"

"Kill him," she walks over to him. "You can say it Stefan it's not a dirty word. He's dangerous. So is Katherine, but you know that. So I have to wonder why you would be willing to play Russian Roulette with her." He looks at her confused. "I know about your fake arguments with Elena. Katherine wants to break you up and you're pretending to play the part. You and I both know you don't want to poke that bear. Look at me I insulted her and ended up dead. What do you think she's going to do to Elena?"

"Katherine just wants us to believe that she's here for me."

"I'll be the first to admit she wouldn't come out of hiding just for you. We also can agree on the fact that she was hiding. Why else would she fake her death? So if she's here that means that she either has no reason left to run or she's found a way so she can stop.

Neither has anything to do with you but that doesn't means she's not serious. I might not know her as intimately as you do but unfortunately we're a lot alike. We both want what we want and we will do anything to get it. Hell I'd burn this town to the ground if that meant Jeremy and Jenna were safe."

He doesn't miss that she doesn't include Elena.

"Katherine only looks out for herself and she's not going to be happy about being played. If I were you, I'd end it with Elena until she's permanently dealt with."

She walks towards the door pausing to say. "I do find it interesting that Katherine shows up around the same time Mason comes to town. Wonder if there's a connection, something to think about."


	5. Plan B

"It's about time you showed up." Alyssa patients had nearly ran out waiting for Bonnie to show up. She slides out of the hood the car and walks over to her.

"You're lucky that I even came at all." Bonnie crosses her arms putting all her weight on her right foot. "What do you want?"

She answers her question with a question of her own."How much do you really know what was going on?"

"I can't believe werewolves actually exist and that Tyler is one."

They sat at the table in the grill Alyssa just filled Bonnie in on what she'd missed since she had been on the oust with Elena and Caroline.

"We don't know if he is one just that his uncle Mason is."

"I still don't see why you need my help."

"Because I find it fascinating that Katherine showed up the same time that Mason got to town and if there's a connection between them then I need know and that's where you come in."

"What can I do?"

"I was there when you dropped Damon with a single look remember so I know what you can do." She leans forward resting on her arms. "And you're going to do that same thing to Mason."

"What makes you think you can get anything out of him?"

"Well I thought I'd start off by asking real nicely and if that doesn't work then I thought I'd get persuasive."

"I'm not going to help you hurt him."

"He tried to kill me Bonnie and nearly succeeded in killing Damon and Stefan so I'd say we'd be even and if you're not going to do it for me than do it for Elena." She knew just the mere mention of Elena's name would convince her to help her.

"You understand how much of a threat Katherine is to her and the people she cares about just look at what she did to Caroline. If you help me with Mason than maybe we can stay one step of head of her and keep her from hurting anyone else."

She could see in her eyes that she was starting to convince her and decides to stop trying to convince her so she wouldn't be laying it on thick. She fought a smile when she could see her given in. "What do you want me to do?"

Mason gets out of his truck and walks over to Alyssa who's leaning against her car.

"You showed up." She says genuinely surprised. "I'm surprised."

"Why am I here?"

"I thought we could talk."

He stops in front of her, "not until you tell me what you've done with Carol." It was how she was able to call Mason for a meet up. She was still in the Salvatore basement.

"Oh don't worry, the sheriff is resting comfortably in a cell and will remained there until the vervain has left her system. Then she'll be compelled to forgot all about our little secret and be sent on her merry little way."

"How do I know that you're telling the truth?"

"What possible reason could I have to lie? It's not like you're going to rat me out. Then more deputies will end up dead and maybe even the council and you wouldn't want that on your conscious would you?"

He thought about it and she could tell that he knew that she was serious about killing any deputy and council member he told and asks, "what do you want?"

"Like I said on the phone I want to talk."

"If this about calling another truce-"

She cuts him off leaning from against the car and walks over to him with her arms folded across her chest. "Oh we're way past a truce. I just thought I'd give you a chance to answer some questions before things got ugly."

"Whatever questions you have you can shove it," he turns around and walks away but she grabs his arm in a vice grip refusing to let go no matter how much he tugged.

"You might want to rethink that."

"What are you going to do huh? We're in the public place." It's why he chose to meet her in the parking lot of the grill. He knew she would risk exposing herself.

"Me? Nothing," he nods behind her, "but she will."

Mason turns around and sees Bonnie behind him.

"I'm really sorry." She says before he starts holding his head screaming in pain in fails to his knees before passing out.

Alyssa walks over and looks down at him.

* * *

"What are you going to do with him now?"

Alyssa had drove Mason and his truck back to the Salvatore house. She had already called ahead to make sure that neither Damon nor Stefan would be around because what she intended to do required her full attention and she knew both Damon and Stefan would attempt to talk her out of it.

Alyssa makes sure the chains that she found in his bag around Mason is properly secure before answering, "exactly what I said I was going to do." She says with her eyes still on Bonnie, Mason begins to stir, "get answers."

She walks over to the table with a different size knives choosing the sharpest one she walks back over to Mason looking at Bonnie, "You're probably not going to want to be here for this."

Bonnie knew she probably shouldn't but she stays anyway and Alyssa gets to questioning Mason who had woke up and discovered that he's chained down to a chair he starts to struggle alerting Alyssa to him being woke.

"Good you're up." She removes the poker from the fire once it was heated. "I wanted you woke for this."

He looks around spotting Bonnie. "What's going on?"

"Think of this as obedient school and this," she holds out the poker for him to see, "is what I call a negative reinforcement. Example I ask you what your doing with Katherine you tell me to go to hell or some other colorful way to say no and I do this." She swipes the knife across his chest and he screams. "And we start the process all over."

"Is that really necessary?" Bonnie asks.

"If you don't like it you're free to leave." She replies to Bonnie and then focuses back on Mason. "Now let's try this again. When did the two of you meet?"

Mason response by spitting on the floor some getting on her shoe. She walks up to him with a smile and smacks him with the back of her hand grabbing a handful of his hair he pulled his head back.

"Let's try that again."

"Bite me."

"Maybe later right now," she let him go. "I need to know about Katherine. Why is she here? What does she want?"

He doesn't answer and she cuts him again. It continues for a minutes before Bonnie speaks.

"This isn't getting us anywhere." She says not sure how long she can go on watching.

"You're right." She admits bored. "It's not. Luckily for you," she grabs a small pouch from the table, "I've found an alternative method."

She walks over to the table with knives and pick up a purple plant.

"What is that?" Bonnie asks.

"A plant. Aconitum 's commonly known as aconite, blue rocket, and wolfsbane. It grows in the mountains. It's also supposed to be toxic to werewolves why don't we test that theory."

She moves towards Mason when her phone rings. She checks and sees that it's Damon and looks to Mason. "To be continued."

She answers her phone stepping away. "Damon hey I can't really talk right now I'm in the middle of something."

"Why don't I like the sound of that?"

"I don't know." She looks at Mason. "Projecting maybe, I assumed you called for a reason."

She listens as he tells her about what they found out about Mason and the moonstone and it's connection to the Aztec curse. "But uncle Mason seems to have gone missing so we can't asked him about that."

"I may actually be able to help." She says looking back to Mason. "I'll call you back."

She walks back over to Mason. "Where's the moonstone?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

She lifts her brow doubting his words, "okay, the hard way it is." She shoves the wolfsbane into Mason's mouth making him grunt and groan in pain. "Wanna try that again?"

"If you want to know where it is I can get it out of him." Bonnie volunteers taking his head in her hands. Alyssa stands back and waits for her to work her magic literally.

When she gets what she was after Alyssa calls Damon and tells him where he can find the moonstone and Bonnie leaves feeling she's been helpful enough.

Alyssa hangs up with Damon before he could ask her how she found that out and got back to questioning Mason this time on the moonstone.

He talks after she threatens to cut off a body part.

"I'm getting it for Katherine"

"Why?"

"She's gonna use it to lift the curse."

"Of the moon? Now, why would a vampire help a werewolf break a curse that keeps them from turning whenever they want?"

"So I wouldn't have to turn anymore."

"Why?"

"Because she loves me."

She looks at him in disbelief "What was it about her?...Katherine doesn't love you. She's using you, you moron."

"I love her!

"Oh, I know. So many men have been where you are. But Katherine will only rip your heart out. So let me do it for her."

Damon pushed her away from him before she could go through with her threat.

"Seriously Damon," she said ticked off,

"You should be thanking me I'm keeping you from doing something incredibly stupid."

"I'm sorry I thought killing Mason was apart of the plan. That's what I'm doing."

"Not before we get the moonstone."

"I'm not an idiot Damon. I don't just go around murdering people without getting what I need from them first," she walked back over to Mason, "which I did. And before you asked, I already sent Bonnie and Caroline to the well where he hid it. He was just going on and on about how he was getting the moonstone for Katherine who he was stupid enough to fall in love with."

"She'll only rip out his heart." He thrusts his hand into his she's chest while looking him in the eyes and he groans. "I'll save her the trouble." He pulls out his heart holding it in his hand.

"That was suppose to be my line."

* * *

Damon rolls up Mason's body in a blanket. Stefan arrives and shows the moonstone to Damon.

Damon response, "All this for that?"

"Yep." Stefan tosses Damon the moonstone and then looks at Mason's body. "I see you've exercised your usual restraint." Stefan says as he walks in and sees Damon rolling Mason's body up in a blanket.

"Actually," Alyssa says from the couch. "That one was all me. Well," she looks back at Stefan, "not all of it. Damon ripped out his heart but the rest was me."

"That's what you call working on your temper."

"It had to be done, and I wasn't angry and completely in control." She got up still holding Mason's phone in his hand after cracking his password. "Carol, big opportunity in Florida," she says as she types, "I'm gonna be gone for a long time. Will send for my things once I get settled. Much love, Mason. Can't let anyone get suspicious now can we. Now...Lets see the last number dialed." She scrolled down the list. "I wonder who that could possibly be?"

"Don't provoke her!" Stefan says in warning.

"Trust me, I have intention of doing that. I already died once because of her. I have no intention of facing her again until we kill the bitch."

Damon plucks the phone out of her hand before she could stop him.

"Damon," she calls in warning but he hits the call button.

"Mason, you should have been here an hour ago."

Stefan tries to get Damon off the phone, but Damon pushes him back. Stefan slaps his hand and walks away in frustration.

Alyssa mouths the word, "don't."

He answers anyway, "Wrong boy toy."

"Damon. For once you've surprised me. I assume Mason is with you?"

"He's right beside me! Although, his heart's across the room."

"You shouldn't have."

"I've had a very busy day today. I killed a werewolf, found a moonstone. Hey, did you know that he hid the moonstone in the bottom of a well full of vervain? I guess he didn't trust you very much. Although, he did love you. Poor guy. Hey, where are you? Because, you know, I could bring him over. Last goodbyes and all that."

"You have no idea what you've just done."

"Aww, did I put a kink in your master plan? I'm so sorry."

"Do you honestly believe that I don't have a plan B? And if that fails, a plan C, then a plan D, and...you know how the alphabet works, don't you? Send my love to Stefan."

She hangs up. Alyssa looks at the Salvatore brothers, "I don't like the way that sounds. Take care of him," she nods towards Mason, "I need to go home." To Stefan she says, "don't let him make anymore phone calls." She left to go home to check on her family.

An ambulance is there when she pulls up and she gets up to see Jenna being wheeled out. Elena, Jeremy, and Alaric were right behind her. "What happened?"

"Katherine," Elena responds in calm panic running her fingers through her hair, "she compelled Jenna to.."

"I don't get it. How can she compel someone on vervain?"

"It's complicated but apparently she convinced Jenna to stop." Ric answers as they load Jenna in.

"Someone needs to ride with her." Elena says.

"I would go," Alyssa volunteers, "but..."

"I'll go." Rick steps up.

"I'll drive Elena and Jeremy."

Ric nods and steps inside with the paramedics and Jenna. Jeremy walks to the car and Elena and tries but Alyssa stops her. "This was because of you wasn't it. Because you refused to listen to Katherine and stay away from Stefan."

Elena didn't deny it and couldn't even if she tried.

"If anything happens to Jenna." Alyssa warns.

"Alyssa," Jeremy calls from the car and she lets go of Elena and walks over to the car.

Elena walks out into the waiting room. Jeremy and Alyssa gets up and walks towards her.

"The doctors told Alaric that she got lucky. She's gonna make it. She's gonna be okay."

Alyssa relaxes after hearing the news, "Does she remember what happened?"

"No, nothing. It's all a part of Katherine's mind compulsion."

Jeremy looks to his sisters confuse. "Why would Katherine hurt Jenna?"

"Ask Elena. I'm going to go check on Jenna." She walks away not being able to stand the sight of her.

* * *

Alyssa removes her jacket as she enters her room pausing when it's fully off. Without turned around she says, "I'm really not in the mood."

"I'm sorry."

"I know your hearing's okay." She draped her jacket on the back of her desk chair, "so I'm not understanding why you're still here." She turns to face Damon who for once looks like he regrets his actions.

"I heard about Jenna."

"Doctor's said she's going to be fine. Wait to get my hands Katherine I swear I'm going to make that bitch regret the day she was born."

He walks towards her. "I thought we both agreed you wouldn't do anything stupid and going after Katherine would be stupid."

"She came after Jenna and Jeremy could be next. I won't let that happen."

"If you try to go up against Katherine on your own she will kill you."

"In case you haven't heard she already did. At least this time I'll be taking her with me." She walks past him to get to her closet but he grabs her and pulls her back to him but unlike the other times she gets out of his hold and pushes him away which catches him off guard and he looks at her stunned. "I'm not that weak lonely teenage girl you met when you came to town. You may have been able to stop me when I was human but not any more. We may not exactly be equals but I am strong now which means you are done pushing me around and you will no longer be telling me what I can and cannot do. Katherine made a big mistake when she came after my family, when she came after Jenna, something she will soon learn I can promise you that." She came closer to him so he get see how serious she was when she said her next words. "So you will you if you try and stand in my way. I suggest you don't. You can see yourself out." She says and then walks away.


	6. Masquerade

"How are you feeling?" Alyssa asks Jenna as she rest on the couch freshly back from the hospital. She had been stitched up and sent home after the doctors deemed that she was well enough.

"Embarrassed," She responds with a hint of pink in her cheeks, "I walked into a knife. How does somebody do that?"

"That does take a special kind of skill," she answers, "I told you were never meant to be in the kitchen. I guess the knives agree with me. They finally rose up and revolted."

Jenna laughs, then winces in pain.

"Careful," she says with concern discreetly scenting for any hint of blood which give away that she popped a stitch. "Unless you want to end up back in the hospital."

"One trip this week is enough."

"I agree, which is why I am remanding you to this couch until further notice and to insure you comply I'm going to make it damn hard for you to leave this spot by bring all your favorite things down here within reach and making a quick trip to the store." She stands up with her purse that she kept beside her. "Anything your heart desire shall be yours so what does milady request."

Jeremy gives her a nod as he walks out of the kitchen letting her know that it was time to meet up with Stefan and Damon at the boarding house so they could discuss how to get rid of Katherine. "Actually I don't want you to pop a stitch thinking too hard so why don't you text me a list no matter how insane and I'll get it." She bent down placing a kiss on her forehead. "No leaving that spot you hear. I will know if you do and you will be in big trouble young lady." She says moving towards the door.

"Yes mom." She tilts her head back so she can see her, "bring chocolate." She says calling after her as the door close.

Caroline is already there when they are arrived along with Ric who voices his displeasure when he saw Alyssa with Jeremy.

"I thought we agreed we were going to keep her out of this."

She sat her purse on the chair of the chair. "I find it highly it both funny and insulting that you would think that I was going to sit at home while you all plot to kill Katherine after what she did to Jenna."

"That's my point. You're too emotionally."

"I think what you really meant is I'm a wild card because I don't have my emotions check yet which is funny because Katherine turned your wife into a vampire and tried to kill your girlfriend. Damon spent the last century and a half looking for a way to free her from a tomb she was never in only to learn that she never really cared him at all. She's the reason Stefan and Elena broke up and Caroline's dead because of her. So don't kid yourself Ric, I'm not the only "emotional one" here. I'm just the only one willing to admit that they're here for revenge." She looked around the room. "So how are we going to kill the bitch? No one...Well I guess there really is no rest for the wicked."

Ric found it hard to believe that she had came up with a plan so fast being that they just agreed upon it that morning and couldn't help but ask, "you have a plan?"

"Since the moment I found out Katherine was in town." After all the stories she heard about her and the resemblance to her sister she had been anticipating this moment. Of course, she couldn't have foreseen the events that happened that would lead to this moment but it was still a good plan if executed right. "But it requires Bonnie, none us is really old enough to take on Katherine and I don't plan dying again so we can't really do this without her."

"I'll call her." Stefan says leaving the room.

"So what is this plan?"

"I'm so glad you asked that Ric," she says turning her attention to him. "Because we're going to need your weapons, and lots of them." It would also aid them with the whole age, power difference between them in case they needed it. "We're also going to need you to show us how to use them."

"I'll go get them." He walks to and then out the door to retrieve the bags from his car.

"Bonnie didn't answer," Stefan says as he walks back into the room, "but I left her a message." He looked around and saw that they were short one person. "Where's Ric?"

"He's getting his little bag of tricks. You know for hunting vampires. I figure we're going to need it."

"So how sure are you that this plan of yours is going to work?" Jeremy asks.

"If there's anything your sister know is how to kill someone." Damon says and she gets mocked choked up.

"I think that honor falls to you but thanks for the compliment."

"So what's this plan?" Jeremy asks giving on

"I thought we could take a page out of Emily's playbook or more accurately spell book. We could find somewhere isolated to lure her into using the moonstone have Bonnie use the same Spell Emily did for the tomb where will be waiting to stake the bitch in the space where her heart should be."

"Isn't that a little risky?" Jeremy was worried about all the collateral damage a.k.a the innocent people who could get killed.

"That's the beauty of it. She'll never see it coming. There is no way she'll believe that we'd attempt to kill her in a house full of people."

"As much as I hate to say this, she actually has a point." Stefan agrees which makes her smile. Getting Stefan on board was half the battle and if he was already on board then that was easier than she thought. "Except that won't be a we there's Damon and I. We're going to kill Katherine."

"The hell you are. She killed me and nearly got Jenna to kill herself. There's no way I'm letting the two of you play lone ranger and Tonto. If anyone of us is going to kill her it's me."

"If we're going by people with the most reasons to kill her I have a hundred and forty five years worth of reasons." Damon says but that wasn't really good enough for Alyssa.

"Yeah..being a dumb ass doesn't really count. But nice try." She says, "And unless you plan on locking me a tomb of my own then I'm taking a shot at her too. So you better choose a room big enough for the four of us."

"We'll still need someone to lure her into the room." Jeremy points out as Alrac walks in with the weapons and Alyssa turns to Caroline which cause Jeremy, Stefan, and Damon to do the same. Catching onto what they were getting out she vehemently disagreed.

"Why does it have to be me?"

"Because," Alyssa starts out in a tone that suggested that she should have been able to figure that out by herself, "she's already cast you as her good little spy and she doesn't know that we know that so she'll come to you for information and you're going to give it to her."

"I am?" She asks confused.

She isn't the only one, Damon also express his confusion and Alyssa sighs in frustration at the lack of thinking they seem to be doing. "Yes, she is." She turns to Caroline. "It's simple all you have to do is tell her exactly what she wants to hear to get her into that room. She so suspicious that she isn't going to trust that we're just going to willing hand over the moonstone so she'll come to you. Naturally you won't tell her the full plan just enough to get her into that room."

"The one that Bonnie will seal shut?" She says starting to get it.

"Yes, you and everyone else will be safely on the other side of the seal where she can't get to you. Damon, Stefan, and I, we'll be the only ones who will be in the room with her."

Rick stops emptying his bag on the table and turn to a Alyssa. It's clear he doesn't approve of the part that she plays in that plan, "she already killed you once,"

"Which means I owe her one," she replies and changes the subject so he can't persuade her from changing her mind not that he could. "Now do you want to give us a crash course in your bag of parlor tricks."

He begins to show them how to use each one of the weapons he made individually when there's a knock on the door. Caroline goes to open it and it's Bonnie standing on the other side.

Caroline invites her inside and she addresses the group.

"I got Stefan's message."

"Hey, you brought the grimoire," Stefan says thanking her.

She comes fully into the room where she spots the weapons on the table and asks, "What's going on?"

"Just your regularly vampire slaying party." Alyssa says with glee, "We're going to kill Katherine."

Bonnie looks displease with this and Stefan tries to calm any concern she has by saying that he can explain. Bonnie asks him to wanting a clear explanation for what they were thinking and he says. "We're gonna kill Katherine."

Alyssa rolls her eyes at his short and repetitive explanation, "good job Stefan, I'm sure that really cleared that up."

Bonnie was still a little concern about the plan and Stefan pulls her aside to answer any questions she might have. While he explains, Alyssa wanders over to the table where Rick sat his weapons and picks up one she likes.

"This works with compressed air. The trigger mechanism is up here. I have two of these in a different size. For you I recommend this. It fits nicely under the jacket sleeve. You use the trigger when you're ready."

She presses the button and a steak comes out flying into the wall next to Damon nearly missing him. She smiles, "I think I just found my new favorite accessory." As she marvels over the weapon.

Ric takes the weapon from her and sits it back down on the table.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"Katherine needs to be put down and I need to be there when it happens."

"What?" Damon walks over. "Don't trust Stefan and I to get it done."

"Your track record speaks for itself."

"Am I needed for this?"

"Are you sure you guys don't want me there tonight?" Alaric asks.

Alyssa answer's no and then gives her reason, "You need you to stay with Elena. I don't want her to know about this. She'll want to call the whole thing off and I'm not about to let that happen."

Alaric response, "Okay. Well, I'll make sure she doesn't leave my sight."

She nods and then addresses the group, "Alright, if anybody wants to back out, speak now or forever hold your piece."

Damon turns to the person he was specifically had in mind, "Caroline."

Caroline assures him, "I won't. Look, she killed me. Fair's fair. As long as there's no werewolf running around."

"Damon and I took care of Mason," Alyssa announces proudly.

Jeremy adds, "And as long as Tyler doesn't kill anyone, he won't turn."

Stefan turns to Bonnie who he wasn't sure about, "Bonnie? Are you with us?"

Bonnie takes a pause as to thank it over, "But no one gets hurt?"

"Except Katherine. Tonight Katherine dies."

* * *

Alyssa grabs a towel as she steps out of the shower. She wipes the mist off the shower. Damon's standing behind her.

"You know there's five other bedrooms you can do that in," He says from the bathroom door. "Or you could just go home."

She turns to him letting her hair down from its clip, "Your showers better." She walks pass him out of the bathroom and over to the bag that she had brought from the house after their meeting. "Besides, I go home, Elena will get suspicious and wonder right in the middle of our plan and wouldn't it just suck if something happen to her." The way she makes it sound says the complete opposite. "The bathroom's all yours." She walks out of the bathroom.

Her hair and makeup was done by the time she got out of the bathroom but she was struggling to zip up her dress. He walks over to setting her hand on his lower back and zips up her dress. His hand brushes across the birthmark on the back of her right shoulder before zipping up the dress the rest of the way.

She turns around to face him and for a few moments they quietly hold each other gaze but then she breaks it by reaching behind her she grabs her purse and masks. She turns and leaves the room so he can get dress. Once he is, he comes downstairs where she's sipping on a glass with blood in it staring at the flames in the fireplace.

She hears him come in but keeps her attention on the flames, "you know you never asked me what I'm going to do if we are able to kill Katherine tonight." She takes a second and then turns to face him. "I know it's been on your mind." She sits down her glass and walks closer to him. "What am I going to do now that Mason's dead. If we do manage to kill Katherine, there's nothing else to occupy my time. Aren't you afraid that I'm going to go off the deep end," she stops in front of him, "maybe even go after Elena." She reaches up and straighten his tie for him. "It's why you've been you've been hoovering lately. I wish I could tell you that I wouldn't, go after Elena." She smooths down his tie and turn to face Stefan who's dressed in a similar suit as Damon. "Now that I assume we're all ready, let's go kill us a doppleganger shall we." She says putting on her black mask.

Alyssa arrives to the masquerade party with Stefan and Damon. The party is in full swing. Stefan breaks away from Alyssa and Damon finding that it would be easier to draw Katherine out if he's alone.

Damon and Alyssa make their way to the dance floor scouting the room for any sign of Katherine while they dance.

After a few silent minutes pass Damon asks, "Do you see her?"

"No," she answer disappointingly. She wanted to get it over and done with as soon as possible so there would be less risk of anyone getting hurt. She looks at him and ask, "You know when I was asking if anyone had cold feet it crossed mind that you wouldn't be able to do this."

He looks down at her confuse as to why she would think that to which she answers,  
"You spent 145 years loving her Damon, that doesn't go away just because you found out that it was one sided."

"And I had to months to get over it, I won't hesitate."

"Fine, but I'd understand if you plan to back out. I'd rather you do it now." She looks around the room again trying to find Katherine in the crowd. "Wouldn't want you changing your mind be the reason we're the ones who end up dead Katherine."

"You know I'd rather talk about your plans for Elena when this is all over.."

She didn't answer him for Katherine was walking down the exact moment. "Look's like the plan work," she nods over to where Katherine made her way to Stefan, Damon turns her around so that he's looking over her shoulder. "There's Katherine."

She listens in while Damon watches the two of them dancing together. She demands the moonstone.

Stefan tells her that he doesn't have it in him but they could go together and get it.

Katherine tells him she has a better plan and suggest he go get it and she'll try not to kill anyone in the meantime.

Stefan says to her it's "my way or you don't get it" and that's when Amiee arrives.

"I don't like this." Alyssa tells Damon sensing that things were about to get a lot worse. She was proving right when Katherine goes behind Amiee with the pretense of fixing her necklace. She could smell trouble and start to walk over but Damon pulls her back.

"Don't."

Katherine snaps her spine twice the second one killing her and throws Aimee's body into Stefan's arms. "The moonstone, Stefan. Tick-tock." She says and walks away.

* * *

Damon and Alyssa joins Stefan once she's gone and looks at Aimee. "We need to take care of this before someone notices." Damon says and Stefan follows his older brother's direction.

"I guess it was a little naive to think that no one would get hurt when Katherine's involved." Alyssa says to Damon when they're in the room they plan on trapping Katherine in. "I just hope Stefan doesn't get cold feet." She knew that he would feel guilty for what happened to Amiee being the one to push her into it not that she needed any help doing it.

"I put the body in the trunk for now." Stefan says when he walks in.

Damon tells him, "we'll dump her when we get back."

As expected, Stefan was beginning to feel guilty, "this is exactly what I didn't want it, Damon."

"And here it goes," Alyssa mutters knowing Stefan's conscious would start to kick in.

Damon response is, "it's collateral damage."

"Right, which is why we need to call it off."

Alyssa objects before Damon got a chance to, "No way, look Stefan I feel bad about what happened to Amiee which I'm sure you probably find hard to believe but I am. Lets not forget why we're doing this. Katherine has to die. It's the only way to insure no one else gets hurt including Elena."

Mentioning Elena work a little but wasn't enough to tempt him to continue after what happened to Amiee because of him and Alyssa understood.

"I get it Stefan." She says coming closer to him. "I do. But the thing is Katherine has to die so if you're not okay with the plan than your liability which I can't have cause like I said, Katherine has to die." She snaps his neck rendering him unconscious and turns to Damon. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"No."

"Good, because they're coming."

Damon trains the ears in the hall where they hear Katherine and Caroline walking down the hall and they take their places as Katherine says, "Which room is it?"

"It's that one."

She goes into the room. Caroline stays outside.

"Where is she?"

Caroline's sobbing turns into a chuckle. "I did it! I really didn't think that I'd be able to fool you but I did it!"

Katherine rushes over but she can't leave the room. She's trapped. "What the...?" She quickly realizes what's happening "Stefan?" She turns around but Stefan isn't the one she sees.

"Not quit," she looks down at where his body lays, "but good guess."

"Alyssa," Katherine says truly surprise that she was the one able to pull it off. "I didn't expect for you to be able to survive get your neck snapped. But you didn't really did that. Aunt Jenna did though. Lucky girl. Clumsy. How does one stab oneself?"

Her hand tighten around the steak in her hands which Katherine saw.

"You don't really think that you can kill me with that now, do you?"

"No," Damon walks out the closet holding the compressed air weapon. "But he can." He shoots Katherine. The stake goes in her back. She stumbles forward leaning against the table and Alyssa runs forward jamming the steak in her arm. She takes it out about to stake her in the chest but she pushes her away and she falls into the table on the other side of the room.

Damon comes behind Katherine pulling the steak out of her back attempting to steal her but she blocks it and knocks him against the wall. Alyssa grabs two pieces of wood from the table that broke she fell into and toss it at Katherine. She ducks the first one and it lodges into the wall.

The second one she catches and toss back at Alyssa who ducks and it hits the wall behind her. She uses her vamp speed to take it out of the wall and once again attacks her but again she catches her arm and turns it against him. She struggles to stop the steak from entering her heart when Damon comes behind her choking her. They fall to the ground and Alyssa takes the steak about to plunge it to her heart when Jeremy burse in making her hesitate for a moment.

"Stop! You're hurting Elena! Everything you're doing to her is hurting Elena!"

Alyssa looks back at Katherine and Damon could see she was struggling with whether or not to steal steal her but eventually backs off and Damon releases her. Katherine smiles as Stefan releases her and she gets up.

"You think you two are the only ones with a witch on your side? Wrong and something tells me that my witch is better than your witch." She takes the stake from Damon's hands. Damon and Stefan look at Jeremy.

"Jeremy, go check on Elena." Damon says. "Make sure she's okay. Go!"

Jeremy leaves.

"Let's all make sure poor Elena is okay. Just a little bit more pressure." Katherine cuts her hand with the stake. Damon hits Katherine's hand and the stake falls on the floor.

Katherine picks it back takes the stake and is about to drive it through her stomach. "This is really gonna hurt."

Damon cries out, "wait!" at the same time Alyssa passively says, "no, don't," a tone Katherine picks up on.

"Now things just got a little interesting." Katherine says lower the stack from her stomach.

Damon turns to her remembering the look of hesitation that she wore after Jeremy announced that Elena was linked to Katherine. He also remembers the conversation they had before they left for the party.

Alyssa response to his look with a, "oh don't give me that look we both wanna see the bitch burn in hell for what she's done. The only difference is, you actually care that she's link to Elena, where as I don't which can't actually be as surprise to you."

"I sense a little sibling rivalry," Alyssa turns to a smug Katherine, "Now tell me," Katherine says finding both her words and attitude towards Elena amusing and interesting. She also begins to think that maybe she could use it to sever her own purpose later, but first, she needed to throw a little fire to the flames. She waves the steak around as she begins to speak so that Damon can see and would be more inclined to keep himself in check. "Would this be because Damon chose her over you?"

Alyssa looks to Damon as she says, "Damon is hardly a reason to want to see anyone dead. Sure it hurts knowing that I'm once again not someone first choice but that's more a matter of pride than any real feelings." She turns to Katherine, "Elena's sins go far beyond the misguided love that Damon has for her, after all, he did fall for you, which makes me seriously question his taste in women and a little glad that Damon didn't choose me."

"So if it Damon isn't the reason you want to see her dead?..."

"There's a long lists of reason really. She brought Stefan to town which in turned brought Damon who not only is the reason that twenty seven vampires escaped a tomb which is how one of them were able to feed me his blood, he's also the reason my best friend is dead. Yet I still fall in love with him which makes me both pathetic and sort of demented. Guess we have that in common, oh and while we're on the subject of you, I almost lost Jenna because of you. Because Stefan and Elena were too stupid and selfish to give up each other.

Then there's you killing me which thanks to the vampire blood I was force fed force me into transitioning. That gave Elena the opportunity to force feed me her blood even after knowing that this is not something I would have ever wanted. She had to go and take the choice away from me like she took away my parents. It's her greatest sin really. She's the reason they were even on that bridge in the first place and if it weren't for her then they would still be alive. So no Katherine, Damon's misguided affection for my sister doesn't even crack the top ten list of reasons why I want to see her dead."

"Then why stop? You could have gotten rid of the both of us in one single shot to the heart."

"Jeremy would never forgive me," she answers simply, "and he's lost too much already. Besides, making her suffer for the next sixty to eighty years is much more satisfying."

"And you call me twisted?"

"Oh I think that honor still falls to you, after all you were the one to fall into bed with a werewolf, should apologize for that though. You might want to put him on a tighter leash."

"I'll have to remember that for next time."

For Alyssa, the words next time implies that killing Mason didn't deter whatever plans she had. She knew that was because he wasn't the only werewolf in town. She needed to get a hold of someone outside of the room since she wasn't able to leave it herself but she had left her phone in her purse where she kept her coat. She needed to check on Tyler who she deduced was plan B.

Thinking about Tyler made her think about the Lockwood's which had her remembering the story that Stefan had told her for his time alone with Katherine. "You bargained the moonstone." She knew that was the only way she could have known that Mason was the one who had it. He was a Lockwood after all so it made sense that he would know where it was. She knew it was also the reason that she targeting.

"What are you mumbling about over there?"

She turns back to Katherine when a thought that was relevant to what she had just figured out occurred to her. "When you struck a deal with George Lockwood, to help you fake your death, you told Stefan that you gave George something that he needed. It was the moonstone, wasn't it?"

Katherine seems to be taking back on that, "Seems like you and Stefan have shared in quite a bit. But good for you, two plus two...And it would have worked except that people found out that I wasn't in the tomb." She looks at Damon. "Thanks to you, by the way. Have I mentioned how inconvenient your obsession with me has been?"

Damon's reply was instantaneous, "You and me both, honey."

"If you needed to fake your death that means you were running from someone." It was something that she concluded months ago but is only able to confirm with Katherine's words.

Damon knew she was wasting her breath and tells her so. Katherine wasn't going to give up her plans for the moonstone but Alyssa didn't need her to. All she needed to was to keep her talking and she would be able to put it together one her own.

She continues, "Thanks to Damon, they know you're not dead, that means that they're still after you. It's why you need the moonstone so bad. You're afraid. That's your secret. That's the downfall of Katerina Petrova."

Katherine decides she has heard enough and rushes her. Alyssa saw it coming and was prepared pulled a wooden clip out of her hair and jams in her chest enough to catch her off guard and make her stumble. Katherine looks shock.

Damon steps in the middle of them to keep things from escalating.

"I can't kill you but it doesn't mean I can't make it hurt."

"Katherine," someone calls to get her attention. Alyssa concludes that it must be the witch helping Katherine. She sees her standing with the moonstone in her hand. "The spell on this room has been broken, you're free to leave."

Katherine is please to hear this and walks over, "thank God."

"When I hand this over my debt to you is over."

"Done." She says.

"I owe you nothing."

Katherine rather impatiently says, "I said done. Give it."

Damon warns, "I wouldn't do that."

She gives her the moonstone. When Katherine touches it, she finds it hard to breathe.

"You should have told me another witch was involved. She's a Bennett witch, Katherine, but I'm sure you knew that."

Damon is alarm when he see's what's happening to her, "Wait, Elena!"

She answers, "Elena's fine."

Katherine falls on the floor.

The witch says, "The spell is broken. She'll heal quickly, Bonnie's with her."

Katherine is suffocating.

"I apologize for my involvement." She says and then leaves. Damon turns to Alyssa but before he says, "Not now," She needed to find Tyler. If she read Katherine cryptic words right, she was planning on using Tyler. She knew she needed to stop him from triggering his curse but she was too late. According to Caroline, Sarah had stabbed Tyler with a letter opener on impulse, Tyler pushed her away causing her to fall and hit her head on the desk.

"Does it means he's a werewolf now?"

"Not until the full moon which isn't tonight which makes that tomorrow's problem." She just wanted to get home get out of that dress and go to bed.

* * *

She was able to accomplish two out of those three. Damon presence prevented her from being able to accomplish the last of it for he was waiting for her when she finished showering, not that she was surprised. She knew he wasn't going to be able to let the conversation between she and Katherine go but she didn't want to talk about either. So she decides to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"I hope you're here to tell me you took care of Katherine."

"She's rotting in the tomb as we speak."

She walks over to her draw to finish getting ready for bed. "I'd rather she was dead but it's poetic I suppose. Still," she turns to him when she I can't help but wonder what or she was running from all this time. It had to start before she met you and Stefan a hundred odds years. Whoever it is, has to be pretty bad if it's got Katherine scared enough to fake her own death. Does that mean Elena's in danger too?"

"Katherine said something to that effect before I closed her in that tomb. But she'd say anything to get out of there." She was manipulative liar and could make anyone believe anything she wanted them too. Mainly people of the opposite sex.

"But even a broken clock is right twice a day. I mean why else hasn't she killed her yet. My guess is she needs her, for what is the million dollar question. I'm guessing she won't be up for answering any questions now that you locked her inside the tomb. Even if she did, she'd just use it to negotiate her way out of the tomb. You and Stefan would be stupid enough to do it if it meant saving Elena. So don't. If it helps. I'll keep an eye on her while she's here."

"Can I trust you?"

"If you were anyone else probably not but I know how much you care about Elena so you can trust me when I say if it comes to it, I won't let anything happen to her. Wouldn't want you moping over her this one 145 years, you wouldn't be any fun."

Damon didn't know whether or not to believe her. She could be almost as good of a liar as Katherine which wasn't comforting to him when it came to the safety of Elena.

Alyssa could see that he was a little apprehensive about her words so she decided to tell him something he hadn't told Katherine, "I see you don't believe me so I'm going to tell you a bit of truth that I will deny if you ever bring up again and we will not talk about ever. I didn't kill Katherine when I found out she was linked to Elena because of Jeremy. Well not only because Jeremy.

Sure I could have and compelled him to forget, which I'd be lying if I said in that split second, I didn't think about it. And as easy as it would have been killing them both and sleeping like a baby, I couldn't do it. It's not because of any sisterly affection that I feel for her but I saw the look on you face when you thought I was going to kill her.

For the first time I saw fear in your eyes, and I really saw how much you love her and I knew that if I took that away, if I killed her then I would lose you and I can't, just like you can't lose her. I hate to admit it but she brings out the best in you and that Damon is the one that got me to care for him. Truth is, I love you more than I hate her."

He struggles with what to say after that but she doesn't give him a chance to say anything and wipes her eyes, "and that's enough of that." She says after a short pause, "because there's something more important we need to address, like Tyler. Short version, Katherine got him to trigger his curse. On the next full moon, he's going to have no choice but to turn. Now what do you suggest we do about that?"


	7. Rose

_Sarah, Tyler and Matt are in Tyler's dad's office._

 _Sarah says, "So, what happened to Aimee?"_

 _Matt answers, "I don't know, she disappeared."_

 _Tyler replies, "She's probably drunk somewhere."_

" _Like me," Matt comes back with and pours alcohol on the floor._

 _Tyler grabs the bottle from him exclaiming, "whoa, don't do that."_

" _What man?" Matt says not getting the big deal. "It's a party." He takes the picture of Carol and Richard and looks at it. "Right dad? You know, looks like your dad wants a drink." He pours alcohol on the picture._

 _Tyler took offense to that, "Hey, that's not cool. What's wrong with you?"_

 _Matt excuses his behavior by saying, "come on, the guy was a dick."_

 _Sarah also tries get him to see his era. "Come on, you're being mean. His dad's dead."_

" _Give me the picture!" He tries to snatch it but Matt won't let him._

" _Remember how your dad used to slap you around?" He slaps Tyler._

 _Tyler began to get angry. "Are you kidding?"_

" _I'm just having fun."_

" _Put the picture down now man."_

 _Matt slams the picture against the desk, breaking it._

" _Okay, you need to calm your drunk ass down right now!"_

" _Do something about it!" Matt pushes Tyler away._

" _I'm not gonna fight you."_

 _Matt rushes over him and throws him on the floor. Matt punches him in the face. Caroline is downstairs, she hears the fight. Tyler gets up and punches Matt. Caroline arrives._

" _What is going on? Stop!" She puts herself between them. She pushes Matt on the floor. Matt gets up and rushes over Tyler but she stops him._

" _I can't! Let me go, I have to finish!"_

" _What the hell is wrong with you?" Tyler asks._

 _Matt yells at Caroline to let him go._

 _Caroline looks at him. He keeps trying to get to Tyler. She elbows him hard in the face. He falls on the floor, unconscious. She rushes over to him. "Matt?"_

 _Sarah secretly takes a paper knife off the desk._

 _Tyler looks at him in surprise. "How did you...?"_

" _Matt failed. If Matt fails, I can't." She says holding the knife._

 _Caroline sees this and yells, "Tyler, look out!"_

 _Sarah drives the paper knife in his chest._

"So Sarah attacks Tyler and he pushed her away and she tripped and she fell and she hit her head." Caroline finishes explaining to Damon who went to see her about Tyler after Alyssa's revelation.

Alyssa had other plans but wanted to hear what Caroline said to make sure he had actually triggered his curse and she wouldn't expose them for nothing. She made at call to Damon after he got there to make sure she was included in the conversation.

She sat on the hood of the car. "Does Matt remember anything?"

"He thinks he blacked out but I think they were both compelled by Katherine. It's why I covered for him with my mom and told her it was an accident." Caroline answers with an explanation.

She could hear the scoff in Damon voice when he answers, "Yeah I don't understand. The guy is a total tool." She had to agree.

"Gee, duh," apparently Caroline feels the same way. "But Tyler getting blamed for Sarah death just opens up questions that he can't answer and do you really think that it's a good idea for him to tell his mom he's a werewolf?"

"No." Both Damon and Alyssa answers.

"Exactly, because that werewolf road leads straight to Vampire Boulevard! I thought I was thinking fast on my feet."

"Is it even safe for us to be talking about this? You know with your mom being all Van Helsing or whatever." Alyssa asks.

"She's leading the search party for Aimee Bradley. They haven't found her body yet."

"That's cause she's in the bottom of the reven. You know us teens and our underage drinking. Tragic as it is, we have living people to worry about or the living dead. So did you see Tyler's eyes turn yellow?

"They were more gold with amber highlights." She asks. "Does that mean he can he turn into a wolf now?

"We already covered this Caroline." Alyssa says a bit annoyed. "He can only turn on a full moon. But now he has increased strength and who knows what else. "I wonder how much Mason told him."

Damon asks Caroline if he knows about them but she doesn't answer, if Alyssa had to guess it was because she was primping herself for school.

"Hey!" Damon calls to get her attention. "What did you tell him?"

"Nothing, really. I don't think he knows much of anything. He seemed really freaked out and honestly, I felt kinda bad for him."

Alyssa hears them leave the room and patiently waits for the conversation to continue.

Seconds later Damon says, "He's got to know something."

"Alright. I'll ask him."

"No, you won't Caroline! He cannot know about us. A bite from a werewolf can kill a vampire so don't be his friend! Do you understand me?"

"I understand. I'm late for school."

"Right. If you want to drop the hint to your mom, that Aimee's body is at the bottom of a ravine with a cracked spine. Might save your mom some time."

She looks at her nails as she hears the door open and shut.

"Here I thought your violent outburst of protection was aimed towards only me."

"That didn't only go for Caroline. Stay away from Tyler."

"Like I would willing go near the one person who being kinky with would literally kill me." She says right as Tyler walks up.

"What are you doing?" Tyler asks.

"You're with him right now aren't you."

"Gotta go," she hangs up on Damon and jumps off the hood of his car. "What does it look like? I'm here to see."

"We haven't spoke since my father's funeral."

"Yeah I know and that's on me. I just have a lot things going on, Elena drama with Stefan if you had a sibling you'd understand."

"What do you want?" He didn't believe she came just to check up on his life.

"I heard about what happened with Sarah. I came to see if you were okay."

"Why wouldn't I be. I didn't have anything to do with it it was an accident."

"So you and Caroline told the sheriff." she steps closer to him and whispers, "but you and I know both know that's not the truth."

"I don't know what your talking about." He says walking over the car to the driver side.

She kept her back to him when saying, "I know what you are." He pauses his body going stiff. She turns around to face him knowing she had him where she wanted. "You have two options, you can get in that car and drive off or you stay and talk me and we can figure this out together."

He takes a second to think about it and shuts the door.

She smiles slyly, "good boy."

* * *

"How did you find out about me?"

She turns to him when he walks back into the room with her tea. "I read the same journals that Jeremy did. Then there was Mason…"

"You talked to my Uncle Mason. Did he tell you anything?"

"No. I didn't. Sorry," she put the cup up to lips smelled it for vervain before taking a sip when she didn't find any. "All I got to go on is the journals. He spoke about your family and it's secret. I always thought that it was ramblings of a mad man but then…"

"What?"

She sat down the cup on the table, "I saw your uncle turn into a wolf. Well I didn't actually see him turn. I saw him go to his truck human and come out...not. So I did more reading and I found out that one of your ancestors was one also. It's where the moonstone came from."

"He wanted to break the curse. Do you know where it is now?"

"I didn't even think it existed until Jeremy said that Mason was looking for it. I still can't believe it."

"How did you even know?"

"Caroline, you know much she loves to gossip. She told me happened with Sarah and the masquerade party. Again thanks to Jeremy I knew what was going to happened on the next full moon. But I'm sure you have Mason to help you through it."

"Mason took off." He sat down on the chair distraught. "I don't know what's going to happen to me."

"I know I can't understand what you're going through but I want to help." She says sitting down on the chair beside him. "You don't have to go through this alone." She took his hand in her, "we can figure this out together."

Stefan and Damon are outside the school when Alyssa shows up with Tyler. Alyssa tells Tyler to go ahead and walks over to Damon just as Stefan enters the school

"Let me guess," she says with a slight sigh, "another Elena crisis."

"She didn't come home last night and her car is still over at the Lockwood's." Damon says with a hint of irritation. "I thought I told you to stay away from Tyler."

She wasn't about to back down. "And I told you, you don't get to tell me what to do anymore. So I'm guessing Elena's missing."

He knitted his brow together wondering how she could have known that.

"I was over at the Lockwood's remember. I saw the car. She wasn't home this morning so I just assumed."

"And you didn't think to say anything?"

"Well I was kind of preoccupied with finding out what Mason told Tyler. He doesn't know anything by the way. He thinks Mason left town which is good you know since he can kill us and probably will if he finds out what we did to his uncle. Besides, I knew you and Stefan would be on it. So I'm guessing were ruling out Katherine since she's stuck in the tomb. Which means that what she said before you shut her in there was true and Elena really is in danger."

"Stefan wants to talk to her."

"What does he think's going to happen? Katherine's going to suddenly be in a generous mood and willing offer up any information to save Elena while she rots in the tomb for the rest of her unnatural life. Because I can tell you right now that's going to happen. You know what is, she's gonna negotiate her release which you're gonna be dumb enough to give her and she's gonna get out and kill us!"

"It's Elena."

"What it is is a bad idea."

"It's Elena."

"I know." He made his feelings for Elena very clear on more than one occasion. "So I know no matter what I say, you're going to try and save her. Even though you have no idea who has her or why. So you go ahead and run to her rescue like always. I'm going to stay here and come to yours." She walks away and headed towards the only the school.

The only way she knew to do that was to find out why Katherine really needed Mason, who it was she was running from and what Elena has to do with it. She knew all three of them were going to be a challenge to find out. Since Mason was dead and Tyler knew nothing, there was only person she could turn to for help.

* * *

"Did you find anything else about the Lockwood's from Isabel's research?"

Ric looks up from his papers as Alyssa walks into his classroom. He looks around to make sure no one else is before addressing her.

"Everything I had about the Lockwood family and Isabel's research, I gave to Damon."

"I know but I was hoping maybe she would have told you something during one of your late night sessions."

"I thought you would have moved on to something else now that Mason's...no longer an issue."

"I would have. If Katherine wasn't the evil bitch that she is and hadn't compelled someone into getting Tyler to trigger his curse. So unless I can find a way for him to be able to control it…."

"Damon's going to kill him." Rick says knowing that it was a good possibility. "Okay, I'll see what I can find out."

"Thanks," she starts to leave but stops and as an afterthought says, "oh yeah you might wanna know, Elena's possibly been kidnapped by someone looking to get back at Katherine, or, because of Katherine, either way, we're going to need some weapons."

She drops the weapons on the table in Alaric classroom, "if you're going to after Elena, you're going to need weapons."

Stefan looks through the bag, "where'd you get this?"

"Rick, I knew I couldn't talk you out of this clear suicide mission. Have you found her yet?" Bonnie was there along with Jeremy so she knew they were using a locator spell to find her.

"Bonnie was able to map it out till a area. Jeremy's going to map it, aerial view will show us what's around there, help us narrow down the area." Stefan tells her and she's please because it meant that she could focus on Tyler.

"Well, it looks like you got it cover." She says walking to the door. Stefan watches her leave.

"You're not coming?" He thought she would insist on coming to make sure they didn't do anything that would get themselves killed to save Elena.

"An hour car ride with you and Damon racing to save Elena….No... Besides I have my own rescuing to do."

"Damon never said he was coming."

"You can't be serious right." She knew Damon would never stay behind when Elena's life can be in danger. He was going to come in on his white horse and save the day as he always had to. They all turn to the door when it opens and Damon walks in. Alyssa turns to Stefan with an I told you so look and says, "Like I said," she walks passed Damon and leaves the classroom.

* * *

Tyler is outside playing basketball with a few guys from school. Alyssa watches from a distance as he uses his super strength to jump up and slam dunk the ball.

"Dude," one of the guys says after watching, "what the hell was that? Where did that come from? How'd you do that?"

Alyssa comes to his rescue by throwing her arm around his shoulder and saying, "Tyler is working on his game, trying to becoming the next Micheal Jordan. Now you fellows will excuse us Tyler has other sweating to do." She leads him away from the group of boys he had been playing with. Her arms still around him, "you gotta to be more careful than that." She lets him go when they were blocked by the school bus.

"I don't even know what that was or how I did."

"Your a werewolf now Tyler. That comes with special gifts, speed, strength, even your emotions are going to be heighten."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Not here, is it safe to talk at your place."

"Yeah."

"Then I'll meet you there."

Tyler lets in Alyssa in and she comes in going straight for his father's study where the liquor is.

Tyler comes in behind her, "my mom has meetings all day." He says so that she will know that they had privacy and were free to talk.

She turns and hands him a glass of scotch that his father liked to keep in the inside of his desk draw, something she had learned from Tyler when they were together.

"Drink this, it'll help with all the inside jittery stuff. Keep you from wanting to rip someone's head off for even looking at you wrong." She says taking a sip of her own drink.

"Was that in the journals you read?" He takes a sip of it.

"No," she picks up the letter opener on the desk, "something I know from experience."

Tyler just looks at her.

"I'm not the same girl that you knew."

"I know." He could see a change in her every since her parents died.

"No, you don't." She looks up at him from studying the letter opener. "If I'm going to help you there are some things you need to know."

"Okay." He wasn't sure what she was about to tell him but she knew it was bound to change everything.

She tosses the letter open at him and uses her vamp speed to catch it before it touches him.

He jumps back frightened dropping his glass, "what the hell?"

"I mean it when I said you weren't alone Tyler."

"You're like me."

"No, not exactly like you. I do know what you're going through. Like you I never wanted this, nor did I have a choice."

"How?"

"I want to tell you everything Tyler. I want to tell you about your mom and the council and everything but I can't unless you promise me that it stays between us. If you tell your mom what I am. I'm as good as dead."

"I promise."

She downs the rest of her drink and sits down. Tyler gets that this is something that he needs to sit down for and does.

"Well for starters your mom…."

* * *

"Damon," she walks into the Salvatore house and into the foyer where the fire was burning but sees Stefan instead of Damon. "I thought you were Damon."

"Yeah," he says holding a glass. "I heard."

She steps into the room. "Jeremy text me that Elena was home."

"Must have disappointed you."

"So what happened? Who took her? Did it have anything to do with Katherine like we thought?"

"So it turns out Elena needs to die to activate the moonstone." Stefan says after filling her in on the situation.

"The moonstone's in the tomb with Katherine and neither one of them are getting out. Elena's safe."

They hear noise coming from the library before Stefan has a chance to response. They share a look before going into the library to check it out.

Stefan calls out, "who's there?"

Rose arrives.

"Rose I presume." Alyssa says to Stefan.

"I'm not here to hurt you."

Stefan asks, "why are you here?"

"Lexi once told me that you're one of the good ones."

Her mentioning Lexi surprises Stefan, "You knew Lexi?"

"Trevor was my best friend. For 500 years I have lived with one person and he's gone and I don't want to run anymore because I don't have anywhere else to run to."

"Well, I'm sorry but I can't help you."

"I don't need your help but I think you need mine. Elijah may be dead but this isn't over."

"What do you mean "it's not over"?" Alyssa asks but she knew that there was no way that it could have been that easy.

"It isn't over. The originals, they'll come for her. They have to. They're doing it for him."

"For who?"

"Klaus."


	8. Katerina

_Katherine runs through the woods to a cottage. She knocks on the door._

" _Help, please help me."_

 _An old woman opens the door._

" _Please, help me."_

" _I don't invite strangers into my home."_

" _No, Trevor. He said that you'd help me."_

 _Rose is inside and overhears the conversation and comes to the door, "Damn him. Always making promises I don't want to keep."_

 _She looks at Katherine._

" _Let the girl in."_

 _Katherine enters. Rose goes over to the woman and compels her. "Bring her water and something to eat."_

" _You must be Rose. Thank you. Trevor said to show you this." Katherine shows her the moonstone. "To prove I am who I say and that you'd help me to freedom."_

" _You stole this from Klaus_

"What the hell is a Klaus?" She looks towards Stefan to explain something they've obviously left out.

"It's not a what," Rose says which does nothing to clear anything up for her. "It's a who. You have to understand I only know what I've picked up over the years and I don't know what's true and what's not true. It's the problem with all this vampire crap but Klaus, I know he's real".

"Who is he?"

"One of the originals, he's a legend." He says getting off the arm of the chair he was sitting in.

"So why am I just now hearing about him?"

"The original family was believed to be a myth."

"Like Elijah?" She says, "who we all know isn't since Rose used Elena as bargaining chip to clear up past indiscretions. I'm still not understanding why she isn't dead."

"Because you need me, Elijah was the Easter bunny compared to Klaus. He's a foot soldier. Klaus is the real deal." Rose says.

"Klaus is known to be the oldest vampires." Says Stefan.

"So you're saying that the oldest vampire in the history of time is coming after Elena?"

"Yes." Ross says while Stefan says, "no."

She looks to Stefan. "How do we know she's not just saying that just so we don't kill her?"

"Because I'm free from Elijah. Why would I come here knowing I could be killed when I could be anywhere in the world?"

"I didn't say you were smart."

"Look, Elijah's dead, right?" Stefan says trying to be the voice of reason. "So no one else even knows that she exist."

"Not that we know of." Says Alyssa, knowing that there could also be the possibility that someone told them about Elena's existing. "For all we know, someone could be on there way right now to tell him."

"I've never even met anyone who's laid eyes on him. I mean, we're talking

centuries of truth mixed with fiction." Stefan says. "We don't know if he's real. For all we know he could just be some sort of stupid bedtime story."

Rose assure, "He's real and he doesn't give up. If he wants something, he gets it. If you're not afraid of Klaus, then you're an idiot."

"I have to agree with the older broad on this one Stefan. She's lived longer than you and maybe Klaus is a myth maybe he isn't but I'm airing the side of caution on this one." She gets up and Stefan asks her where she's going. "If Elena is in danger then so is everyone else that I love because you have all proven that you do stupid things in the name of Elena."

"What are you going to do?"

"Something stupid."

He understands what she means. "You're going to see Katherine." She was the only person they could get the full story from being that she was once in Elena's position.

"She's the only one who knows the truth."

"How do you even know she's going to tell you the truth?"

"I don't, but I have try." It wasn't just Elena's life on the line. Everyone she cared about could be in danger if Klaus were real. "Think you can keep Damon busy while I'll talk to her?" She asks Rose.

"How do you suppose I do that?"

"He's going to want to find Klaus. I'm sure there's someone you can talk to about that."

"I have a friend in Richmond that might be able to help."

"Perfect, when he asks, say exactly that." she turns to Stefan, "think you can keep this away from Elena long enough for me to get answers. We both know what's gonna happen if you do. She's gonna sneak off and talk to Katherine alone. This way she'll get the answers she needs without having to talk to Katherine herself."

"And if she asks where you and Damon are?"

"Lie, it's not that hard. I'm sure you've had a lot of practice over the last century and a half. Whatever you do, don't tell Damon. He's annoyingly protective and he'll end up screwing up everything."

"Are you sure want to do this?"

"No, but I have to. It's the only way to save the people we love."

* * *

She opens the tomb and calls out for Katherine dropping the bag she bought with her on the floor. Katherine comes to the tomb door. Her skin looks pale a sickly and Alyssa takes a bit of pleasure in that.

"You're not looking so well."

"What'd you think, I'm starving."

"I know." She's going to show a bottle of blood that she bought with her. "It's why I brought this. I was hoping we can talk."

"And you thought that you could bribe me?"

"It takes what 10, 20 years for your body to shut down. Must be painful to desiccate and mummify. I can't even imagine. So we can either talk, or I can leave you to rot." She shrugs, "your choice."

She could see the moment she gave in and opens the bottle pouring some blood into the cup and uses a stick to slide it in the tomb. Katherine takes the glass and drinks. Her skin regains some of its color.

"What do you want to talk about?" Katherine puts the cup on the ground.

"Klaus."

"Someone's been doing their homework."

Alyssa grabs it and pours her more blood into the cup of the bottle. "See I knew you were running from something. Like I knew if it had you scared, whatever it was had to be powerful. Never expected for it to be an original." She slides the cup back to her. "Not that I'm really sure what an original is."

"Klaus isn't just any original, he is the original. He and I go all the way back to England, 1492, after I left Bulgaria. Or was thrown out."

"Thrown out?"

"My family, Elena's true ancestors, they disowned me. My indiscretions were not tolerated at that time. I had a baby out of wedlock. The shame."

"It's why it wasn't put in your families book. It says the line ended with you."

"My baby was given away. I was banished to England and I had to learn to adjust. So I quickly became English. It was there that I caught the eye of a nobleman named Klaus. I was taken with him at first, til I found out what he was and what he wanted from me."

"He wanted to sacrificing the Petrova doppelgänger to break the curse. He wanted to drain every single drop of blood from your body, what he wants to do with Elena." She pours her another cup. "What I don't get is what the Petrova blood line have to do with Klaus?"

"It's really tedious but... " She drinks and crushes the cup. She has regained more of her color. "The curse was bound by the sacrifice of Petrova blood. Witches are crafty with their spells. The doppelgänger was created as a way to be able to undo the spell. Once the doppelgänger reappeared, the curse can be broken."

"So you ran before he killed you?"

"Something like that."

Katherine talking to Rose.

" _It was to be part of the sacrifice ritual, so I grabbed it and made my escape."_

" _People do not escape from Klaus. Everyone who tries ends up back in his grasp and anyone who helps them dies."_

" _I know the risk you bring on yourself by giving me aid."_

" _I'm risking nothing. At nightfall, I'll bring you back to Klaus and beg him to show us both mercy." She catches Katherine and pushes her in an empty room._

" _No! No!"_

 _Rose closes the door._

"Rose never ended up taking you back to Klaus, did she?"

"No, but not because she had a change of heart."

 _Rose enters the room in which she is holding Katherine. Katherine is on a bed._

" _It's nightfall. Time to go."_

 _She sees that Katherine is hurt. She's there's blood on her stomach._

" _When did this happen?"_

" _In the woods, I tripped."_

" _It's a lie, I would have smelled it."_

 _She finds a knife in Katherine's hand and takes it._

" _I'd rather die than go back to Klaus. Please, just let me die."_

" _If you die then Trevor dies with you."_

 _She bites her wrist and puts it in Katherine's mouth, forcing her to drink the blood. Her wounds heal. Trevor arrives._

 _Katherine struggles against her, "No. No!"_

" _Where is she?"_

 _Rose rushes over to him and leaves Katherine alone. She pushes him against the wall.  
_ " _You have set us both on the path of death. I only hope Klaus sees the honor in returning that girl to him."_

" _He will sacrifice her."_

" _Then so be it!"_

" _I love her, Rose."_

" _He'll kill you. He won't stop until he has all of our heads."_

" _Then we shall run until we die."_

 _They hear a noise in the room. They rush in to see what's happened and find Katherine hanging from the ceiling by a rope. She's dead._

* * *

"So you killed yourself?" Alyssa couldn't say she was surprised. Katherine was a survivor and Klaus needed a human doppelganger for the spell to work.

Katherine confirms it and says, "as a vampire, I was no longer any use to him."

"But it didn't work, did it. You didn't really escape, you've been running from Klaus ever since."

"I underestimated his spirit for vengeance but living in a suitcase is better than dying so you can have your blood spilled over some silly little rock."

"You used them, Trevor and Rose. They spent five hundred running. Trevor just got killed."

"I never thought he would last that long."

"You don't even care that you ruined their lives."

"I was looking out for myself. I will always look out for myself. What I don't get is why you care. You hate Elena so why try and help her. Or is it Damon you're trying to protect?"

"I'm trying to protect my family. Jeremy isn't going to sit back and do nothing when Klaus comes for Elena. I'm not about to let him risk his life to protect hers. She's the reason for all of this. If what you are saying is true."

"I have no reason to lie. I have no reason to do anything but sit here and rot."

"Okay," she says willing to believe her for the sake of the conversation, "assuming it's even partially true, that's the reason why you came back isn't it? Because you wanted to be the one to hand Elena over to Klaus. You wanted to stop running. So you got Mason to find you the moonstone. When Damon killed mason you needed another werewolf. So you made it so Tyler would trigger is curse."

"Witches and their spells: so many ingredients, so many people to sacrifice."

"I'm guessing you need a vampire too it's why you killed Caroline. Killing me was just for fun you couldn't have known about the blood."

"It could have been anyone I suppose but I like the poetry of Caroline."

"Spells requires witches. Yours bailed but there's always Bonnie. You were gonna just hand of them over to be killed?"

"Better them die than I." She goes back into the tomb.

"Wait, how do I stop Klaus?" She yells after her but Katherine continues to walk in the tomb.

She pulls out the book that Ric had picked up from Isabella's research on the Petrova bloodline and toss it into the tomb. She was hoping that it would persuade her to continue to talk to her.

She comes back opening the first page in the book.

"There's nothing you can do. Whatever you do to escape Klaus, he will get his vengeance on your friends, your family and anyone that you've ever loved. He killed my entire family to punish me for running away. So when Klaus shows up to kill us all and he will I'll be safely in the tomb, where no vampire will enter because they can't get out."

She retreats back into the tomb. Alyssa leaves having gotten all the information she could out of her and returns to the Salvatore home.

Damon and Rose are curled up by the fireplace, under a blanket. Damon is shirtless. Rose is in her lingerie.

She walks over to the bar and gets a drink. "Don't you two look comfy."

Damon stands up and put on his shirt.."Where have you been?"

"Trying to figure out a way to save Elena by learning all I can about Klaus and what he wants with her." She takes a sip. "You're not going to like it but then you have Rose to comfort you."

"I'm sorry." Rose says looking between them. "Am, I missing something, are you two."

"Not the Gilbert Damon wants, like he's not the Salvatore Elena wants. Speaking of which where's Stefan. I only want to have to say this once."

Stefan walks in having just seen Elena. "Katherine tell you anything?"

"You let her see Katherine?" Damon angrily.

"She wanted to protect Elena." He couldn't say no to that.

"I wanted to protect you two," she corrects, "and just about everyone else that Klaus can use as a target. All of whom are people I love. Protecting Elena just happens to be the way to do." She says folding her arms almost in pout. "Besides, if I left it up to the two of you, sooner or later you'd end up dead. She told me that he was the one she stole the moonstone from. That she was going to use it and her to break the sun and the moon curse."

"Only she used me and Trevor to turn her we already know this part skip ahead." Rose says impatiently.

"Elena isn't the only thing he needed. He also needs a witch and He has to sacrifice a werewolf and a vampire. It's why she killed Caroline and was with Mason, turned Tyler after Mason was no longer an option. She was preparing to sacrifice them all to save herself."

"Did she mention how to stop him?" Damon ask hopeful yet doubtful.

"According to her, he can't be. He eventually gets what he wants and he doesn't stop until he does. He killed her entire family to punish her for running. If he comes for Elena, and I'm pretty sure he will, there's nothing we can do to stop him. But it's Elena, so I know the two of you will come up with something to protect. I just hope we all don't end up dying in the process." She says walking out of the room.

Damon follows her as she walks to the door and she turns around when he calls out to her, "About Rose…"

"Don't," she pleaded exhaustively and he snaps his mouth shut, "I just spent the day outside of a a vampire prison with your ex-girlfriend who looks exactly like my sister, who you are in love with, discussing how everyone in my life is in danger for that exact reason. The last thing that I want to do right now after all of that is talk about the women you choose to sleep with this week. You made your feelings perfectly clear and I get it. We don't have to keep talking about it."

He nods his agreement and she turns and leaves.

* * *

Elena is waiting for her when she gets home, "Stefan said you went to see Katherine." She says getting up off her the bed.

"I wanted to know if there was a way to stop Klaus. She wasn't really much help but then we already knew that. She spent five hundred years running from him if there was a way to kill him she would have done it by now. But don't worry, Stefan and Damon are going to find a way to save you even if everyone else dies in the process."

"What you mean everyone else?"

"You're not the only one Klaus needs to sacrifice in order to break the curse. It's why she killed Caroline and triggered Tyler's curse. They all have to die too, maybe even Bonnie. But like I said, Damon and Stefan are going to make sure you're safe."

"At the expense of Tyler, Caroline, and Bonnie."

She merely shrugs seemingly uncaring and walks over to the door. "Now if you don't mind," she gestures towards the door, "it's been a really long day and I need sleep if I'm going to find a way to stop Klaus from killing all of us."

Elena silently walks to the door thinking about what she just learned. She stops and turns around right as Alyssa about to close her bedroom door. "When you say stop Klaus from killing all of us?"

"Yes I mean you. It's not because I want to. But if you die then a lot people will be hurt."

"Meaning Damon?" She was beginning to see how much she cared for him.

"Meaning a lot of people, including Jeremy and Jenna and they've both been through enough. I'm also not about to let them sacrifice themselves for you."

"You hate me that much?"

"Yes."

"I know you won't believe me but I did it because you're my sister and I love you."

"Then you would have just let me die. The way that I wanted. But you didn't, and the why doesn't really matter. You cursed me to be like this, something that you wouldn't have choose for yourself and something I didn't want for mine. So whatever sins I've committed who's ever blood falls on my hands, it's on you." She shut the door in her face.


	9. The Sacrifice

"Shhh. I don't want to wake the kids."

"What it be so bad that they know I'm here?"

"No, but I don't want them to see you like this." Jenna walks into the kitchen and pauses. Alaric sees it and stops before he runs into the back of her.

"Too late," Alyssa says with a smile watching the two of them nearly turn red after having been caught in just their underwear. Well Alaric was Jenna was wearing his shirt but if she had to guess she would bet that's all she had on.

"Alyssa," he steps behind Jenna to cover up. "We didn't think anyone else was up."

Her smile turns into a smirk, "Clearly. I'm just glad I woke up at intermission." She put her bowl into the sink missing Rick turns a shade of red knowing the true implications of her words.

He chuckles nervously and Alyssa turns around to face them leaning against the sink. "Well...I'm naked. So I'm gonna go."

Alyssa watches him go impressed with what she saw she walk back over to the counter, "that's the third time this week he's spent the night."

"Are you okay with that?" She asks hesitantly.

"What? Of course," she reach over the counter to grab her hand. "I just want you to be happy. Rick seems to make you happy so I'm more than okay with it."

Jenna was relieved to hear that and it showed her face but the smile was temporary because she was concerned about her niece. The bowl in the sink that she use to hold the contents of ice cream spoke to that. She recognized it as her comfort food. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she looks down to avoid having to lie directly to her face yet again and looks up. "Why," she turns away from her to put on a pot of coffee, "don't I look okay?"

"You've always been good at hiding your feelings."

She use to be. Since she's become a vampire her emotions have been all over the place and harder to control especially when she's angry. "Apparently not anymore."

"I know you better than to ask if you want to talk about it. I know you'll talk when you're ready. Just know that I'm here when you are."

Alyssa watches her leave wishing that she could talk to her about what she was going through but she knew that it would be selfish of her to drag Jenna into her problems. She was safer not knowing what was happening though from recent events she wasn't really sure how true that was anymore.

At least if she knew the truth she would be able to better defend herself. Or that's what she liked to think. In reality, she would have just been bogged down with thoughts at what was happening and how to save everyone she cared about without them dealing with the lost of Elena like she currently was.

She still was no close to coming up with a solution and time was running out. She knew that much. This Klaus guy didn't sound like a very patient person and he'd already waiting five hundred years believing that the last Petrova doppelganger had died with Katherine. Now that he knows that that's not true, she was willing to bet he was probably foaming at the mouth in anticipation to get his hands on Elena.

Yet she wasn't the only one, he still needed a vampire and a werewolf to complete spell. There was plenty of vampires running around Mystic Falls present company included yet there was one werewolf in all the state of Virginia that she knew of and he was just days away from his first night as a wolf. She promised to help him out and yet she hadn't been doing a good job at keeping her promise. She had yet to find out anything helpful but that didn't mean she was going to stop looking.

She still had Mason's stuff to go through. She was hoping that he left something behind for Tyler to follow. Maybe something like an instruction manual on how to deal with your first time changing. It was a long shot but she was going to try.

 _Hey Tyler, how are you?_

She erased the message pacing around her room trying to decide how to broach the subject of his turning. She knew that it had to be on his mind the closer it got to the full moon.

After sometime she text.

 _I haven't forgot my promise to help…._

She hit send and sat the phone down on the dresser and tied her hair up walking into the bathroom.

She checked her phone when she was out to see that Tyler had text back to he had.

 _Vampires don't have enough of their own problems?..._

 _I know what it's like to feel like you have no one on your side that you can trust or talk to. I was hoping that helping you would make me feel a little less alone._ She hit send and began to get dress for school texting Tyler in between.

 _I'm close to finding out what you need to now. I think I might have a lead._ She types as she walks down the stairs. She hits send as she makes it to the front door and opens it. When she looks up, Stefan and Damon are standing in the front of the door and the look on their faces tells her that was she was about to do has to wait.

Elena, Stefan, and Damon are are standing around the Island in the kitchen discussing Katherine and what she told them when they went to visit them in the tomb. Alyssa leans against the counter near the fridge texting Tyler while they are having the conversation.

Stefan just informed them that Katherine promised to give the moonstone and leave town if they let her out of the tomb. Highly doubtful of this Elena ask, "You don't believe her, do you?"

Damon answers, "No, of course not. We just want the moonstone."

Alyssa sends Tyler a text explaining the theory she had that maybe Mason left something back in the old Lockwood property. The cellar in particular.

"According to Rose's friend Slater," Alyssa phone dings in the middle of Stefan as saying. "there's a way to destroy the spell that Klaus wants to break."

 _How do you know about the cellar?_ Tyler text back and Alyssa quickly makes up an excuse.

 _Mason was headed there the night of the party at the lake._ She texts back while Damon says, "No spell, no doppelganger sacrifice. Ergo, you live."

 _It was also the night of the full moon. It's pretty obvious he was heading there to lock himself up but he changed before he got a chance to._

She finishes her text as Elena asks, "How do you destroy it?"

"By releasing it from the moonstone."

Ding.

Damon gets annoyed at the constant interruption and Alyssa's lack of participation and finally speaks up, "I'm sorry are we keeping you from something important?"

She leans up from the counter while answering, "actually yes you are. So if you don't need me I really got to get going."

"We're trying to save your sister life here." Damon points out so that she could catch how serious the conversation was.

"Protecting Elena has been my life's mission since I died. Now a friend needs my help and I'm not going to turn my back on them so I'm leaving it up to the two of you to keep her alive. Oh and if anything happens to Jenna or Jeremy in the process, you don't have to worry about Klaus killing her cause I will. Just to give you something to think about." She smiles, "Kay," she grabs her stuff with a smile and leaves.

* * *

She sends a text to Tyler that she's there. He's coming out of the cellar when she arrived.

"Couldn't wait until I got here."

"I got curious."

"Find something?"

"You could say that." He goes back into the cellar and Alyssa follows. "Watch your step."

He turns on a flashlight as they enter the Cellar and moves the beam of light around the room.

"You were right. This is where Mason was headed the night he turned. It's this way."

Tyler heads deeper into the Cellar with Alyssa cautiously entering behind him. Tyler shines the beam of light at a part of the cave. Alyssa walks into the Cellar and looks at where the beam of light has landed. Three deep scratches run across the wall. She touches them.

Tyler shines the light further down the wall at a pair of rusty chains. "I found this bolts and chains. I need new chains, but the bolts could still hold." Tyler grabs the ring around the bolt and pulls it hard, showing Alyssa how resistant they are. "I think that's what this place was used for full moons."

They proceed to glance around the cave. Alyssa walks forward and spots something in a nook. She grabs an item wrapped in a piece of cloth and walks back over to Tyler.

"What's that?"

She unwraps the cloth around what appears to be a journal. She takes it out of the cloth and hands it to Tyler.

"Could be Mason's."

Tyler takes the journal from her and flips through the pages. He stops at a page and begins to read out loud from it.

"August 31 - My body is changing. I'm edgy, angry, impatient. I get so mad, I black out and forget what I say or do. I'm not myself, not since Jimmy's death. What's happening to me?"

Tyler flips further back into the journal and glances up at Alyssa.

"He chronicled everything." Tyler stops at a page and reads from it. "The full moon is tonight".

"Well, does he say what happened?"

Tyler flips the page and sees a memory stick taped to the page of the journal. He slides it out of its place and holds it in his hand, looking at it and then up at Alyssa.

"Maybe he recorded the whole thing instead of writing. We can look at it later. Come to my house after school?"

He nods looking a little weary and she leaves the cave. He follows.

* * *

Alyssa stops by Alaric classroom during free period. He's sitting as his desk eating a sandwich and looking over some papers.

"Hey, I need you to get Jenna out of the house later." He gives her a look of weariness, and concern, "don't worry I'm not doing anything stupid. Tyler is going to be there."

"Something tells me you the two of you don't want to be alone just to study." He says putting down his sandwich and wiping his hands.

"The full moons coming up and I told Tyler that I wouldn't let him go through it alone."

"You see that right there is the definition of stupid. Or did you forget that werewolf bite can kill a vampire." He whispers the last part.

"No Ric, I'm completely aware of that. Look, I know that is completely stupid of me to want to help him but Tyler is only one of his kind that he knows and I know that he's feeling completely alone in all of this."

"Feeling guilty about Mason?"

"What?" She scoffs, "no. He deserved what he got. He threatened my friends and was going to expose us all. He needed to die. Tyler doesn't and we both know that Damon will if he sees him as a threat."

"I'm guessing Damon doesn't know about the promise you made to Tyler."

"Damon, doesn't know a lot...like how I told him I was a vampire. But I left him, Stefan, and Caroline out of it. Look Tyler is an ass but he doesn't deserve what's happening to him and it's my fault that it is."

He was shaking his head but not to say no but at his own stupidity that he was about to even agree to it.

"Okay, okay, but you need to tell Damon you told Tyler. I'm not sure what the two of you have going on but it's clear that there is something between you as complicated that is and if he finds out that I knew about this and didn't tell him."

"I will. In the meantime I need you to keep Jenna busy. Damon will be preoccupied with the Elena drama and so will Stefan."

"Two hours." He says and she smiles thanking him and leaves the classroom.

* * *

Alyssa phone bings as she walks over to the couch carrying her laptop and drink for Tyler. Her phone bings again and she ignores it sitting it on the table. She sits the lap top beside turning it on as it bings again.

"You need to get that?"

She turn down the ringer crossing one leg over the other. "It's not important."

It lights up showing another message from Damon.

"It doesn't seem like it"

She turns it over and picks up the flash drive inserting it into the usb port. "This is more important." She says as the video starts to play and an image of Mason pops up on the screen.

"It's September 15 - 2 hours from the first full moon since I triggered the curse".

He pause the video and looks at her. "You were right. He taped his first transformation."

Alyssa grabs Mason's journal out of her bag and begins to flip through it. There's nothing on the page the flash drive was on but there was on the next page. "He wrote about everything the next day."

Tyler fast forwards through the video as Alyssa reads aloud from the journal. "I chose the garage. I could deadbolt the door. It was far from the street so no one could hear. I bolted hooks to the floor for the carabiners".

Tyler slows the video down and watches "Like for mountain climbing"

Tyler speeds the video up again. "Retractable cables."

Tyler slows down the tape to a part where Mason is drinking a golden liquid from a water bottle. Mason sputters and coughs, kneeling on the ground.

"What's he doing?"

"It's...wolfsbane." She continues to read aloud. "I diluted wolfsbane with water to weaken myself, but I could barely get it down without puking. It felt like I was drinking battery acid. Over an hour passed and nothing happened. It got so quiet I could hear my own blood pumping. That's when..."

On the video, Mason begins to scream in pain, pulling at the cables holding him.

"I kept thinking I'd black out and not feel it." She continues to read. "But I did. I...I felt all of it."

On the video, Mason has fallen to the floor due to the pain he is experiencing. Mason cries and yells for help. Alyssa could see how watching the video was affecting Tyler so she fast forward the video.

"How far are we in?" He asks shakily.

"We're three hours in." She continues to fast forward the video. "Four hours. Five hours."

Tyler continues watching the video. Mason's body begins to contort and he yells even louder now. Tyler, not being able to handle it anymore, pauses the video. He gets up, his eyes filled with tears.

"I can't - I can't do that. Alyssa, whatever that was, I can't go through that."

"There's a reason they call it a curse Tyler. It's not suppose to be fun. But...he did say that the transformation speeds up over time.

Tyler picks up the glass of alcohol and drains it in one gulp.

"So, if you can just get through this first time, then…"

"It's not like I have a choice."

"I didn't have a choice either. I haven't really had many choices that were my own recently. I think it's time I change that."

Before he had a chance to ask her what she meant, she leaned in to kiss him. He was surprised by her actions but it didn't taking him long to react by pulling her on to his lap.

He pulls away only to ask, "are you sure about this?"

She stands up grabbing his hand and pulling him off the couch, "oh yeah." She leads him upstairs.

* * *

Alyssa came back down alone some time later to grab the laptop and journal when she hears something in the kitchen. "Jenna?" She walks towards the kitchen where she finds Jeremy patching up his neck. She walks towards him turning his head to the side and to get a better look at it. "Is that vampire bite?"

He wrenches his neck free from her grasp. "It's nothing."

"Jere, someone took a chunk out of your neck that's not nothing. Was it Damon?"

"No. He wasn't even there."

"He wasn't wh-?" it took a few short seconds for her to realize what he meant. "You went with them to get the moonstone from Katherine?"

"I know you were going to say. It was stupid okay I know. I already feel bad. Stefan's stuck in there because of me. He went in to save me."

"It's his own fault for getting you involved with it in the first place. This is exactly why I didn't want you having any part of this. You could have gotten killed Jere."

"So could Bonnie okay. I did what I had to do."

"Yeah and look how that turned out."

Elena walks up on the porch with Damon who brought her home from seeing Slater after Rose ditched her.

"Now you can be the one to explain it to Elena." She says hinting to him that she had come back. Jeremy walks out of the kitchen to answer the door and she follows.

Tyler comes down as she joins them and they look from him to her. She hands him the journal and the USB drive. "We'll talk later."

"Yeah." He takes the drive and the journal and leaves.

After he's gone, Alyssa's met with stares.

"What?"

* * *

"You know I can heal that for you." Jeremy covers the bite on his neck with the bandage. "If only to avoid having to answer questions from Jenna." She walks into to his room and sits on his bed. "That neither one of us can answer. Speaking of answers, when did you and Bonnie become a thing."

"How'd you?" She taps her ear to let him know that she had heard the conversation between the two of them. "I'm kind of surprised you heard anything. I thought you'd be too busy with Tyler."

"We were so I only heard sound bites. Enough to know that you're seriously crushing on her. What are you just going to work your way down the friendship ladder. Please don't tell me Caroline is next."

"You're hooking up with Tyler."

"That was a strictly one time thing. No repeats. Besides we're not talking about me." She swats him on the leg when she realizes he was purposefully trying to change the subject. "What do you think Elena is going to have to say about you having the hots for her best friend?"

"What about you and Damon? You know he's in love with Elena."

"And she's in love with Stefan. So we're both stuck wanting something that we can't have. Who knows now that Stefan's stuck in the tomb," she shrugs lightly, "he has a chance to get what he wants."

"And you're okay with watching it happen?"

"One thing I've learned to do kid," she says as she gets up, "is live in her shadow." She places a kiss on the top of his head. "Get some sleep."

Elena walks pass her as she leaves Jeremy's room. Damon right behind her. Alyssa turns to him as Elena shuts the door wordless glancing at him before going to her own room and shutting the door. She waits until she hears him leave before leaving out herself to see Stefan.

He's waiting at the entrance when she enters the tomb. She makes sure she stays away from the tomb door as she walks up, "and here everyone's been worried about me going off and doing something stupid yet you go and get yourself trapped in an inescapable tomb with your psychotic ex."

"What can I say, I couldn't let you and Damon being the only ones to go around making bad decisions." He says leaning inside the tomb walls.

"Except yours landed you in there because of me. If I hadn't said what I did about Elena…"

"Hey," he stops her from finishing her thoughts, "Jeremy made the decision to come in on his own because he didn't want Bonnie to get hurt. It's not your fault. I don't want you blaming yourself." He knew what that kind of guilt to do to you.

"Well I do blame myself and you. I only asked one thing of you and that's to not do anything that leaves me alone to babysit Damon and you go and get yourself locked up and leave me with sole guardianship."

He cracks a smile at her attempt to lighten things up with humor. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well you better be lucky that I'd be stuck in there too or else I'd just might have to come in there and kick your ass."

He chuckles lightly at the not so veiled threat. She takes a moment to be serious and thanks him for saving Jeremy, "if you hadn't gone in there, Jeremy would probably be dead and I don't think I can survive losing him."

She was already hanging on by a thread as it is and if she were to lost either him or Jenna she didn't think she would be able to keep that dark part of her that she tried to fight everyday from surfacing.

Stefan knew it too. He saw bits of that after Damon had killed Lexi and the whole situation with Mason. Her family was the only thing that helped her kept her from giving into it completely and he knew it was the only thing that was keeping her from going after Elena.

"I promise we will find a way to get you out of there." She hated the idea of him being stuck in there especially when she partially blamed herself for it.

She leaves after promising that she wouldn't do anything stupid in her search to help free him and in return she gave him an "are you kidding me," look. The one thing that he should know about her is when it came to helping the people she cared about, there was no limits she wasn't willing to go, which was exactly what Stefan was afraid of.

She just gave him one her signature smirks, that he was convinced she adopted from Damon, before leaving the tomb with a promise to try and not do anything that he would consider to be reckless and dangerous.

Too bad reckless and dangerous always seemed to find her. It happened to be waiting for her when she got home.

"I thought you left."

"I came back. How's Tyler?"

"If that's your round about way of asking me if I was him, I went to see Stefan. I can't believe he got himself locked up in the tomb with Katherine." She says sitting on the porch swing.

"Because of your idiot brother wanted to play hero." He sits down beside her.

"It looks like we both got one of those."

"I promised him we were going to find to get him out of there."

She sighs, "me too. I don't know how since Bonnie wasn't strong enough to do it but we can't leave him in there."

He looks at her with his eyebrows drawn together and determination on his face, "we won't."

"I know." She wanted to ask how Elena was handling it but that would just open up a conversation she wasn't ready to have so she didn't and instead stood up and went inside.


	10. By the Light of the Moon

Bonnie's standing outside of the Gilbert house holding something that Alyssa recognizes as Elena's chanting with her eyes clothes. Alyssa soon realizes that she's casting a spell on the house.

Damon walks in from the kitchen and sees Alyssa standing near the door with a bag on her shoulder. "Where do you think your going?"

"To see Tyler." She adjusts her stance to a defensive one knowing that the mention of Tyler and a full moon in the same sentence would send him on the verbal attack. "He sent an S.O.S. Tonight's the first full moon since he triggered his curse. Why's Bonnie casting a boundary spell?"

Jeremy joins them. "To keep Elena from going on another suicide mission."

"Right," she nearly forgot about the whole role trip she took with Rose to contact Klaus so that she could hand herself over to him. "I can't exactly say that I disagree." She was met with instant looks of approval at her word choice and she decides to clarify what she means. "It's not because of my feelings towards her. I would do the same thing in her position if it meant protecting you and Jenna."

"We wouldn't want you risking your life to protect us."

"Hey, I already died once in the name of family. Speaking of which," she directs to Jeremy, "did you get what I asked for."

"Yeah," he handed the herb that she had asked for. "What you do you need it for?"

"Aconite flower works for werewolves the way vervain does for vampires. According to Mason, if Tyler ingests this before he turns it'll weaken him and hopefully keeps him from being able to break out of his chains."

"But you can't be sure right?"

"No, but it's not going to stop me from helping him."

"What is with this family. It's like you all have death wishes." Damon says irritated with the fact that she was willing to put her life on the line to help out Tyler. "Tyler is a werewolf. Your a vampire. Being around him is dangerous especially tonight."

"Being related to Elena is dangerous. So is being a Gilbert and in case you don't remember is also the reason I died. I'm not going to hide away and let you risk your lives for someone you care about and not be willing to do the same. Now unless you're planning on having Bonnie trap me in the house too, I got to go." She turns and leave.

* * *

Alyssa pulls up behind a truck that's parked outside of the Lockwoods. The licence plates says Florida which seats off alarm bells. A blonde woman steps out of the car and Alyssa does the same meeting her at the front door.

"Hi," she smiles friendly as she greets her.

"Hi," the woman's greeting was just a friendly. "Do you live here?"

"No, my friend Tyler does." She stares at him for a moment trying to see if she get sniff out whether she was a wolf but can't. "I'm sorry I'm being totally rude, I'm Alyssa." She holds out her hand for her to shake which she accepts.

"Jules." She releases her hand. "Maybe you can help me. I'm looking for my friend, Mason."

"Tyler's Uncle?" She feigns ignorant. "I thought he was back in Florida. At least that's what Tyler told me."

"No one seems to have seen him since he left to come here from his brother's funeral."

"Maybe Mrs. Lockwood knows something." She says walking in front of Jules and turning the knob on the Lockwoods door knowing it would be open.

"Tyler?" She calls out as she enter. Jules coming behind her. He comes to the door with a black duffle bag which she assumes has everything that he needs for tonight. Tyler looks over to Jules and Alyssa introduces her. "This is Jules." She says to him as Mrs. Lockwood walks into meet them. "She's here looking for Mason."

"Mason's back in Florida," Mrs. Lockwood says. "He has been for a while."

"She says he never made it."

"I was wondering if you had any other ideas where he could be?" Jules asks and Mrs. Lockwood shows her to the living room where they could sit down and talk to her.

Tyler starts to follow but Alyssa stops him. "You can't. I know you want to hear about Mason but you can't risk it." They didn't know how long the transformation was going to take and she didn't want to risk that they didn't make it in time before he changed he could hurt someone.

Tyler got was at stake too and left with her. She shoots Damon a text that simply said we have a problem one the way to the car and got in.

"I can't believe Mason's missing." He says when they were not two minutes into the drive.

Alyssa feels her phone vibrate in her pocket but doesn't want to risk Tyler seeing it or answering questions so she doesn't answer.

She looks at him briefly. "Maybe he just stopped to go surf somewhere. Isn't that Mason's whole thing?"

"Maybe. This girl just seemed to think he would have called."

"I'm sure he's okay. Your mom must have talked the sheriff by now. They're going to find him. The only thing you need to worry about is getting through the full moon. Afterwards, you can worry about Mason." She stops the car near the watering hole so they can walk the rest of the way to the cellar since her car wouldn't fit through.

As she steps out, her phone vibrates in her pocket continuously and she fishes it out seeing Damon name flashing on the screen. She turns to Tyler as he grabs his bag out of the car. "Aunt Jenna you got my message." She says stepping away from the car.

"Yeah, and it was pretty vague," Damon says playing along knowing that she was Tyler and if they were speaking in code then it meant that she couldn't talk openly.

"Sorry about leaving the house without saying anything. I had school stuff to do. Tyler and I have this project that we need to work on and it's a really big part of our grade." She turns to see Tyler with his bag on his shoulder. "Ah huh we'll be doing it most of the day at the library instead of at Tyler's."

He nods to the cellar to let her know that he was going to go sat up and she nods signaling that she'll only be a minute and he walks away. "Mrs. Lockwood had some company today. A friend of Mason's stopped by looking for him, apparently he's not in Florida." She watches Tyler walk away. "Mrs. Lockwood was on the phone with the sheriff when we left."

"Well that's not good."

When she was sure she wouldn't be overheard she faces the direction she was standing. "I know. Who would have know Mason puppy pals would have come looking for him."

"You think she's a werewolf?"

"Can't be sure, but she could cause a lot of problems for us."

"I'll take care of it."

"Be careful."

"Yeah. You too."

She hangs up and join Tyler in the cellar where he's preparing the chains.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah." He nods to his bag. "Tell me you brought the instruction manual."

"Tell me you brought the wolfsbane."

She takes a bag out of her purse with the herb in it. "It wasn't easy to find."

He goes to take it, when he touches it, his skin burns, and he yelps and draws in his breath. "I have a water bottle in my bag, we can mix it in there."

She goes and takes the bottle out of the bag and mixes the wolfsbane in the water.

"The guy at the hardware store said this setup could hold up to 5,000 pounds."

She hands him the water bottle. "Let's hope it's strong enough to withstand how ever much weight a werewolf can pull."

He takes the water bottle setting it aside she walks away from Tyler as he begins to undress. She doesn't question why he chose to strip down. Her mind was somewhere else as she looks down at her phone anxiously awaiting to hear back from Damon.

Tyler notices that her mind is somewhere else and asks again is everything okay.

She turns to him cell phone still in hand.

"You seem distracted."

Not knowing how long they were going to be stuck in the cellar, Alyssa decides to tell him the truth, well parts of it to pass the time while they waited.

"I'm kind of am. See, I sort of poured my heart out to this guy and now I'm just waiting for a response...of any kind. It's pretty stupid I know. I'm standing here waiting for a guy that I've known my whole life to turn to a wolf and all I think about is whether or not today is the day he finally calls. Even though I know what he's going to say and it's not going to be something I should be waiting around to hear."

He hadn't expected her to confess something so personal especially to him and he didn't know how to respond so he simply says, "I'm sorry."

"It's my fault really." She goes on. "I should have known better, especially when the guy is in love with my sister. You don't have to say anything." She says when he struggles to find something to say. "There's not really an appropriate response to something like that. And before you ask," she walks back over to him knowing the next question that was on his mind. "It's not Matt. I've been sort of keeping my distance from him lately."

"He doesn't know?"

"That I'm dead?" She shakes her head when answering, "no. He's just going to ask a bunch of questions that I can't answer. I don't want to drag him into any of this. I didn't want to drag anybody into this So I just kind of been dealing with this on my own. It's why I'm here. I didn't want you to go through the same thing. Speaking of which, we should probably get you chained up."

She walks over to him. She wraps the chain around each wrist and ankle, as well as a chain looped around his neck, all attached to the walls of the underground cave. Tyler watches her the whole time. She gives it a firm tug to make sure it's in place. "I think that should do it." She turns to him when she sure it's secure. "Whatever you want to ask me Tyler just ask." She folds her arms.

Even though she gave him permission, he still hesitates. "This guy, the one you poured your heart out to. Is he what you wanted to forget?"

"That among other things, but he's the main reason, and considering my heightened emotional state, I could have done worse. So I thought it was better than the alternative."

"The guy you're hung up on, It's Damon right? Stefan's brother? I've seen the two of you together a few times."

"So you've been watching me?"

"It's kind of hard to miss. You often look like you're planning something."

"It's usually because we are. Damon and I we get each other. He accepts me for who I am and I don't try and change him. Of course most of the time he's like the devil on my shoulder encouraging me."

"So it's the mysterious bad boy thing he has going on that you're attracted to?"

"He's not really that much of a mystery. While I don't agree with his methods, the reason behind them I do. He wants what we all want, love and to keep the people we love safe. Again his methods are questionable but you can never question the reasons behind them."

"It's what Vicki use to say about you when I asked her why the two of you were friends. She said that you got her in way most people didn't. You didn't look at her like some trash from the wrong side of town. You actually saw who she was beneath all of that."

"I guess it's why I fell for Damon. He's sort of like the male version of Vicki. I think they actually would have gotten along. I can see it now the three of us raising a little hell together. Who knows maybe she would have even been standing here instead of me helping you through all of this. You know if you weren't such a huge dick to her."

"And here I thought girls like that sort of thing."

"Only girls with self-esteem issues which, I guess you can say I have extending from resentment issues that I may or may not still have but that I'm trying to change. It's just harder than it looks."

He was an only child so he couldn't say he had any knowledge in that department but he did know what it was like to feel like a disappointment to his father.

Him bringing up his father had made her ask something she had been wondering. "You think your dad knew about the curse?" She asks taking a seat. It was going to be a while and she thought she ought to get comfortable.

"I don't know." Tyler tries to do the same but the chains prohibit him. "I wonder how he would react if he was around to see."

"I thought the same about my parents in the beginning. I couldn't help but wonder what my parents would think of me if they were alive. If they knew what I turned out to be. Would they hate me or could they love me? But then I think I never felt their love for me before. Nor could they accept who I was, that I was different from the daughter they really loved. So I guess it's a good thing they aren't around to see me become the thing they hate the most."

"It wasn't your choice. Right?"

"It wasn't. But I have a choice in whether or not I stay this way, or whether or not to end it? Before, the choice seemed simple to make. I knew that there was somewhere better than this. I believed that there was a better place I'd go where I'd see my parents and we could be together again. It made dying a lot easier. Being turned into what I am, I can't say that I feel the same comfort that there's a place that exist like that anymore. I guess it's why I haven't choose the other path. It's the not knowing that keeps me from doing it."

"I wonder if I'll feel the same after it's over."

"I don't know. I think you'll still be the same old Tyler, just with super senses and the ability to change into a wolf every full moon."

"However long that takes?"

"Mason's journal said the first transformation can happen before the moon hits its apex. Whatever time that is. Did it say how long you'll actually be a wolf?"

"A few hours. Maybe more, maybe less." She could see the worry in his eyes and she wanted to take his mind of it. At least, for a little while.

"Did I tell you that I saw Mr. Saltzman naked?" She knew that it would be the one thing that would catch his attention and take his mind off his current situation. She explains the situation about him dating Jenna making sure to keep the conversation light and away from the situation.

But she wasn't able to keep it away from it too long.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" She asks before he starts to drink the wolfsbane.

"Yeah. Mason said it'll diminish my strength so I can't break free." He starts to drink.

"Tyler…" She wanted to warn him knowing that it would work in the same effect that vervain has that it was going to hurt like hell. But he drinks a few swallows before she could fully prepare him but he begins to choke and then starts to gag, vomiting on the ground. He falls to his knees as he coughs. She gets closer to him and touches his back.

"No."

"Shhh…"

"Don't!" He pushes her away and she keeps her distance sensing that the time was about to come.

He rises up to his knees scraping at the skin on the back of his neck.

"Tyler" She calls to let him know that she's there for him and also hoping to give him some comfort.

"I'm burning up." She gasps tugging at the chains around his neck. "It burns! "

She comes closer to him but still keeps her distance. She kneels on one knee beside him. "I know. Just breathe through this, okay?"

"I'm trying." He cries turning towards her on all fours. "You should go. You should leave."

"Not yet." She was going to stay there as long as she could.

He begins to writhe in pain on the floor and she steps back as his bones start to break. It starts with his arms twisting itself back and he begins to scream and cries.

"It hurts. It hurts."

His bones keep twisting itself until it stops and he's left lying flat on his stomach on the ground facing away from her.

She comes beside him helpless not knowing what to do. "I want to help but I don't know what to do.

"There's nothing you can do." He says slowly rising to his hands and knees.

He gets up. His bones and his spine are breaking. He screams. "Get out!"

"No!" She promised him that she was going to be there with him and she was going to keep that promise. It was the only thing she could do at the moment.

"Get out! I don't want to hurt you."

"No! No."

She says definitely coming closing to him. She embraces him stroking his hair as his bones continue to break.

"It's okay. You'll fight through it, okay?"

Tyler's limbs spasm, and more bones break. He screams in pain and Alyssa tries to soothe him.

"Leave!"

"No." There was still time for her to be there for him.

"Just go, please!"

"No, not yet."

"Just go!"

"I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere.

Suddenly he screams. His bones continue breaking. His eyes are yellow and his fangs are out. She know it's time to leave so she gets up steppin behind the black gate. He gets up and looks everywhere around him. She gets to the gate just as he removes one of his chains and walks backwards up the stars as Tyler's transformation progresses. She continues to hear his bones breaking over the top of his screams as she makes it outside the cellar door. She shuts in sliding down to the ground.

Suddenly, his screams stop and she slowly rises up from the ground and turns towards the door. There's a loud bang as Tyler now in wolf form tries to break through the door. He puts cracks in the wood and she knows the door won't hold for long. She sees a piece of wood next to the door and props the wooden plank against it and vamp-runs into the woods.

She stays there until she feels that it's safe for her to return and careful goes back to the cellar, carefully. Damons warning ringing out loud and clear in her ear as she makes her way down the stairs of the cellar.

She wasn't sure what state he would be in once she found him and was still cautious and stayed on the other side of the door. "Tyler?"

"Alyssa."

"Tyler." She comes into the room and rushes over to him and puts a jacket over his shoulders seeing that he was naked. "You're okay. You made it. You didn't get out. You're okay."

He's cries out and she can hear the pain in his voice when he says, "no, I'm not."

She takes him home when he is well enough to move but she is reluctant to leave him after what he's been through. She could see that it still affected him. Along with the knowledge that he's going to have to go through it again.

He turns to her when they reach his front door and he begins to speak but she silences him with a kiss which surprises him. She pulls away from the kiss and reaches behind him to open the front door. She steps around him walking inside and looks back silently asking if he were coming. He steps inside standing in front of her and she turns the knob to the door slowly shutting it behind them.


	11. The Descent

The door to Tyler room opens and Alyssa walks in carrying two cups of coffee. Tyler smiles when he sees that she hadn't left.

"You're still here."

"You sound surprised." She balances the coffee and she rejoins him on the bed handing him a cup of coffee.

He sits up so that his back is touching the head board. "You usually don't stick around after."

"Well considering all we did was sleep, I figured I could just this once. Besides, if I remember correctly you were to always leave before the sun came up." She says taking a sip of coffee and he mimicked. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay. I'm sore, every muscle aches and not in the good way."

"Well hey, at least you survived your first full moon without hurting anyone. It'll get easier. You'll get better at it, you'll learn to control it and it won't hurt so much."

"We don't know that for sure."

"No but if I've learned anything during all of this is that you have to learn to take the small victories. It's the only way you'll survive through it."

"I really don't know how to thank you. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there."

"If you want to thank me, next time get stronger chains."

He became concerned at her words, "I didn't hurt you did I?"

"No," she answers looking down at her cup and chuckled, "which is a good thing because it would have ended really bad for me. We just have to be more careful next time."

"What do you mean it would have ended bad for you?"

Her phone rings preventing her from answering and she gets up walking over to the other side of the room where she left her coat to dig her phone out of her pocket.

"Stefan," she says pleasantly surprised. "If you're calling me I can assume that means you're free from your early grave. Congratulations. Can I assume that that's not the reason you called?"

As she suspects it wasn't, she walks back over to the bed leisurely as he says. "I need your help."

"You can stop right there Stefan. Whatever Damon's gotten himself into or about to, I want no part of it."

"Damon's looking for a cure for Rose. He thinks Mason's werewolf friend might know something."

She read between the lines. "You're afraid what he's going to do if he can't find it."

"Damon only expression his emotions in one way when he's upset."

"Blood," she knew it was a good chance he would go on a killing spree. He and Rose had grown close over the last few days and they had became friends. She sighs knowing that she was about to agree to help him despite everything in her telling her not to get involved, "where is he?"

* * *

Damon walks into the grill after receiving the call from Rick that Jules was there and starts to walks towards her but stops when he sees Alyssa sitting at table nearby. He walks to meet her as she makes her way over to him.

"Glad you could pull yourself away from Tyler long enough to help."

She ignores the tone in his voice. "Tyler's fine thanks for asking. Stefan told me about what happened to Rose. I'm here because he asked me to be. I know you want Jules dead but there's a lot of people here, Damon."

"Oh, damn. There goes my plan to rip her spleen through her back." He starts to walk towards her but she places her hand on his arm and stops on him.

"Listen, I know you're upset about Rose.

"Why does everyone think that I'm upset about Rose? I'm fine. I don't know if you know this but sometimes, vampires die. I'm gonna have a friendly chat with lady wolf ease up."

He heads towards Jules again and this time she lets him. She knew better than to stop him when he was like that. But she wasn't going to let him go and question her alone.

"Well, if it isn't the one I meant to kill...I'll have to get that right next time."

"You won't live to see another full moon unless...unless you tell me how to cure a wolf bite...and then I won't kill you."

"Promise?" She says batting her eyelashes.

"Yes."

She leaves some money on the desk and then looks at Damon. "Bite me." She gets up but Damon grabs her arm.

"Damon," Alyssa warns stopping beside him hoping he didn't remember the conversation that had only a minute ago.

"I'm not afraid of you." says Jules. Alyssa could tell that she means every word of it.

"Then you are very, very stupid."

"How's your friend?" Jules begins to taunt which Alyssa knew was a really bad move on her part. "Rose, is that her name? Have the chills started? The unbearable pain?"

"If there's a cure, tell me or start watching your back." He threatens but Jules is unphased.

"Did I mention the dementia?" Jules continues. Alyssa could see Damon slowly starting to lose the little control that he has. "It'll eat away at her brain. Soon she'll be rabid. You want a cure? I'll tell you the only cure that exists: take a stake and drive it through her heart." She advises and then leaves.

Alyssa follows Damon as he storms out of the grill and once again she stops him.

"You have that murderous look in your eyes. You want to go after her and kill her. Normally I'd be the last one to try and stop you but Rose is dying Damon and as much as you want to you can't save her. The only thing you can do is be there for her. Like you were for me, that's what she needs right now."

She could tell that what she was saying was making sense to him and she was starting to get through. "If what Jules says is true, then Rose is going to be in a lot of pain and confused. She shouldn't be left alone."

"I wouldn't leave her alone. Elena's looking after her."

"You left my sister with a vampire who's slowly losing her mind. Need I remind you that Elena is a carbon copy of Katherine. The person whose to blame for having to be on the run for five hundred years."

"Yeah, probably not the best idea."

"You think." She says walking over to the car and getting in.

* * *

The door is open when they walk onto the front porch of the Salvatore house to see Elena standing there with a stake in her hand.

Damon asks if she's okay after seeing the stake in her hand then asks for Rose.

She tells him that she doesn't know and begins to explain how she attacked her and thought she was Katherine.

Alyssa looks at Damon, "don't want to say I told you say."

Elena says that she had to lock herself in the bathroom. "When I came out she was gone."

"Okay, we got to go look for her." Damon says which Alyssa agrees to.

Elena starts to walk towards the door but Alyssa tells her to stay there, "if she has another episode you can't defend like we can. Just stay here, you'll be safer that way."

Elena looks to Damon who silently agrees and together the two of them walk out and search for Rose.

Their search leads them to Mystic Falls high school.

"It's funny how all school events this last year has lead to me searching with vampires with you." She says as they troll the parking lot. He looks at her confused. "The last time we were here together they were looking for Caroline. It's funny how things tend to go full circle. Unfortunately I don't think it's going to end so well this time." She glances at him. "Are you prepared for that?"

"I'm not upset. Vampires die, it's normal."

"Nothing about our lives is normal. But what you're feeling right now is." She stops in front of him. "I've been where you are Damon, plenty of times. I know how hard it is to lose someone you care about. Stefan thinks that he's the only Salvatore brother who feels deeply but so do you. In this short amount of time you've grown to care about Rose, a lot, and that's okay. It's okay to feel and to hurt. It's what makes you human."

The moment was cut off by a girls scream and they run towards it. They see Rose attacking a girl when they arrive.

"Rose, stop!" She rushes toward him but he grabs her and pins her on the ground.

"Rose, Rose! It's me, it's Damon. It's Damon."

Her face is normal again. She looks at the girl's body. She starts crying. "Did I do this? I never meant to hurt anyone. I never wanted to hurt anyone."

"I know."

She looks at Alyssa. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"Come on, let's get you home." Damon says getting up.

"No, I don't have a home, I haven't had a home in so long." She cries and Damon holds her in his arms. "Oh make it stop, please make it stop! I hate it, make it stop!"

Damon carries her in his arms and starts walking away.

* * *

They return to the Salvatore home where Damon gently lays her on the bed and covers her. She was covered in sweat. Alyssa sits with her.

"This is the second time in twenty four hours I'm sitting here helpless watching someone go through unspeakable pain and not being to do anything."

Rose opens her eyes and Damon smiles down at her. "Hi there."

"I'm sorry."

"You went on a murderous rampage." Damon excuses. "It happens."

Elena enters the room.

"I'm sorry, Elena. I don't like taking human life, I never have."

Damons Looks at Elena, annoyed. "You shouldn't be here."

"It's the worst part about it: the hunt, the need to kill, the thirst, the pleasure it brings you afterwards. I wasn't meant to be evil. It hurts."

Damon angrily says, "stop talking about it."

Rose looks between Elena and Alyssa. "Damon's a lot like me. He wants to care but when he does he runs away from it. I'm sorry for what I've done today."

She nods. "I know."

She continues to talk to Elena, "and you need to fight. I know that you're scared but you have to do it anyway."

She coughs and Alyssa removes some hair out her face trying to comfort her like she did today.

"Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Apparently I can't help it."

Rose uses what strength she has to grab her hand. "You can never forget it, what it's like to be human. It haunts me. It's the only thing that's kept me going. It doesn't hurt as much anymore."

Suddenly she starts to scream and Alyssa wraps her arms around her holding her the way she does Tyler.

Elena asks, "what do we do?"

"Go."

Elena wasn't sure about that. "Damon…"

"Just go, Elena," Alyssa tells her, "we got this."

She leaves and Damon sits on the bed on the other side. Alyssa holds onto her tighter.

"Oh god!" She writhes in Alyssa's arms. "Make it stop, make it stop! I can't take it anymore, make it stop!"

Alyssa holds her until she stops screaming and eventually Damon takes over after Alyssa reminds him of what they talked about in the parking lot, about making easier for her to die. She left him alone to do it.

"Hey Tyler, it's me. I'm just calling to check in. Sorry I haven't done it sooner. It's been real crazy around her but once it calms down we'll talk okay. I'll see you later."

Damon comes down some time later carrying Rose's body.

Alyssa gets up and blocks his path. "Woah where are you taking her?"

"To the sheriff."

"For what?"

"To throw the sheriff off the vampire trail."

"Rose deserves better than to be buried or burned or whatever is the sheriff plans to do with her. She spent her entire life in the shadows don't let it end that way."

He appears to be going what she said some serious thought but then a shadow fell over his face and he walks past her carrying Roses body with him.

Stefan's there when you she comes from the boarding house.

"Something's tells me that I'm not the one you're waiting for."

He smiles gently, "no."

"Well I'm sorry to report I haven't seen your Juliet." She gives her words a second thought, "come to think of it, I haven't seen much of you either. But of course I was dealing the whole Rose thing. She didn't make it."

"And Damon?"

"Is dealing with it the only way Damon knows how. He was carrying her body to the sheriff. She left a few dead bodies that needed to be explained so it doesn't lead back to you know," she points between them. "I don't plan on leaving him alone for too long though. So what has the Elena's caped crusader been up today?"

"I went to see Isobel." He says leaning against the arm of the chair he been standing next to when she first walked in having thought she was Elena.

"That must have went over well with sis." She mimic his actions and he gives her a guilty look. "She doesn't know, does she?"

"Not yet."

"Smart, she wouldn't have approved. Despite what Rose told her about tonight about fighting I doubt that she's going to give up on being a martyr. So where you able to find mommy dearest?"

"Not exactly."

She looks behind Stefan to see the last person she hoped to never see again.

"Hello Alyssa."


	12. Daddy Issues

"Why is he here?"

"He says that he can help Elena."

"If he really wanted to help her he would stayed gone."

"That was the plan but I'm afraid that is no longer possible." John spoke.

She looks over at him for the briefest of seconds before turning back to Stefan. "I'm starting to think that maybe you're suffering from a little werewolf inflicted dementia too or did you just forget that he tried to you kill you."

"That's all in the past," he tries to assure her but she was not buying his concerned father act. "We're all after the same thing, keeping Elena alive."

To John she says, "Maybe if you would have kept in your pants or I don't know how about not screw the only living Petrova relative we wouldn't even be in this mess." She turns to Stefan, "why are we even trusting him? It's not like he's proven that he's trustworthy as a matter of fact he's proven just the opposite. Yet you're willing to put Elena's life in his hands."

"No matter our differences we both want what's best for this family." Says John.

"What's best for this family, John, is for you to drop dead."

He took a step towards her trying to temper his anger. "I know that we've had our problems in the past but if we can't put those problems aside we won't be able to save Elena."

"Who says that I want to save her?"

John looks to Stefan, with confused look on his face. Stefan avoids eye contact with John instead focuses his attention Alyssa who quickly is able to deduce the situation.

"Stefan hasn't told you." She says with a small smile.

Once again John looks to Stefan before dragging his eyes back to Alyssa. "Told me what?"

"I'm a vampire now John."

He looks to Stefan if to ask what, "why wasn't I told about this?"

She waves towards Stefan in gesture, "I'm sure Stefan didn't want to bore you with the sordid details. I on the other have don't have a problem with explaining to you how I've become the world's biggest contradiction."

"I think we should focus on saving Elena."

She smiles preparing to use that as a segway into her explaining how she became what she is. "You know it's funny you should mention Elena, Stefan," but the door opens preventing her from being able to do so and Elena walks in."

"Speak of the doppelganger," she turns as she walks in and watch the surprise look on her face when she sees there visitor.

"Uncle John?" Her voice matches the surprise look on her face. "What are you doing here?"

Alyssa turns back around so that she's facing Stefan and John, "we were just getting to that. Apparently John has this magical cure to save you but he hasn't exactly been willing to share. If it wasn't for the fact that he has verain on him or in his system I'd compel it out of him. Though there are other ways of getting what we want out of him."

"Alyssa," Stefan warns in the fatherly tone he uses with her whenever she suggest that she would harm someone to get whatever she wanted.

"Oh come on," she waves in John's direction, "after what he's done to you you can't honestly care what happens to him."

"Even with his faults, he's still Elena's father."

"Grayson Gilbert was her father. John is just some guy that knocked up the women stupid and desperate enough to sleep with him" She turns to John when she says, "and out of respect for _our_ father, I'll let him keep breathing, for now." She leaves him with a warning. "The moment I decide you're no longer of use that stops."

* * *

Carol is on Tv talking about the recent deaths that has happened in the past forty eight hours. "Due to the recent tragedies that have plagued our town, we will be holding a memorial in Town Square today to honor all those we have lost. Join us and hope that as a community we can begin to heal."

Alyssa takes the remote on the couch and switches of the TV and stands in front of it and John crossing her arms. "What are you really doing here."

"Well good morning to you too." He says getting up and walking in the kitchen. She follows him. "Coffee?"

She looks at the cup he was fixing in disregard before looking back at him. "I don't want coffee. I want answers. Why are you really here?"

"It's like I said," he faces her. "I'm here to protect Elena."

"That's the part I'm having a real hard time swallowing. Considering that you haven't exactly shared how you planned on doing that."

"I will. When I'm convinced I can trust you."

She chuckles, "You're the one that's been masquerading as a devoting uncle for the last 17 years and you're convinced that you can't trust me."

"It's nothing personal. It's just you haven't showed good judgement in the past."

"Says the guy who's been Katherine's bitch for who knows how long. Look, I don't trust you and you don't trust me but we both want to protect this family."

"Last I heard, Elena wasn't on the list of family you wanted to save. Unless, that's changed since last night."

She looks over his shoulder as Elena comes in and it's clear from the look on her face that she heard what was said. She walks away from him and over to her. "Maybe you could get more out of him, since he can't trust me." She left them to discuss something he was obviously unwilling to talk about with her.

She walks towards the front door on her phone. "So you'll never guess the bright idea your brother had for saving Elena and it just so happen to be the one person neither one of us wanted to hear from again. He claims that he knows of a way to save her but of course he isn't sharing. I don't trust him. I'm hoping together we can find out what he knows, if not, he has to go, permanently. I'm on way."

She hangs up stopping by the car when she sees Tyler there waiting for her. "We need to talk."

"Can we do it later," she gestures to her car, "I was actually on my way somewhere."

"It can't wait."

"Yeah, neither can this." She continues to walk to her car.

"What happened to my uncle Mason?"

His question makes her stop and she turns to him looking completely confused. "Why would I know what happened to Mason?"

"You tell me?"

She answers completely confuse, "last I heard he went to Florida. Unless, did your mom find out something new from that Jules woman."

"No, but I have. I know he's dead and I want you to tell me what happened."

"I don't know what happened to Mason, Tyler, I wish I did. If only to give you some kind of closer." She starts to get back in the car.

"Okay, then let me tell you: Stefan and his brother Damon killed him, because Stefan and Damon are vampires, just like Caroline, just like you."

"Did Jules tell you that?"

"Is it true?

She stops pretending she doesn't know anything if only to get on what what she had previously planned before she was interrupted. "Yeah, so what if it is?"

"Did you know he was dead this whole time?"

"How is knowing that going to help?"

"Did you know?!" He asks angrily pushing her against that car. His eyes flashing yellow. She uses her vamp strength and speed grabbing his arm and twists his arm and pushes him away.

"Mason threatened to out Damon and Stefan and nearly got them killed. He was dangerous Ty, not only to my friends but to me too. It was either him or me."

"So you let them kill him?!"

"I'm sorry Ty. I really wish it hadn't come to it but he didn't give me any other choice. I know that you don't see it but I didn't tell you because I was trying to protect you."

"Protect me?"

"I've managed to keep Damon from coming after you, for now. If you do anything stupid, like go after him or Stefan, I won't be able to protect you anymore. Damon already wants you dead Tyler. Don't give him another reason to want to kill you."

"You mean like he killed Mason."

"Damon wasn't the one who went after Mason Tyler. I did. I'm sorry that I've lied to you but it was to protect the people that I care about. I'm sorry that it had to be Mason Tyler. I hope you'll be able to forgive me. I have to go." She gets in the car and drive off.

* * *

"Damon?" She walks in expecting to see him but got the other Salvatore instead. "Sorry, I thought you were Damon. I thought he'd be here. But if he isn't then I guess he got my message about Uncle John."

"So you were the one who told him about me calling John?"

"I thought he would be the sensible one out of the two of you which should show you how messed up your judgement is on this."

"He said that he could help Elena and we're desperate."

"He says a lot of things Stefan, none of which we should believe. I mean this is the guy who hid the fact that he was Elena's dad for seventeen years. There's also the matter of how he's been Katherine's right hand man for god knows how long and nearly barbecued Damon. We can't be that desperate."

"Bonnie's new witch friend is working with Elijah, so we have to assume that the moonstone was never destroyed. Elena is putting all of her faith into some deal that she made with Elijah to keep everyone safe. I mean, do you trust Elijah? I don't trust him. He's an Original, he can't be trusted. It's not like we can just go up and kill him, because apparently, he can't die!

"I'm still waiting for the part where John Gilbert is the answer."

"He knew about the sacrifice, Isobel told him. He said he knew of a way to keep Elena safe.

"And how are we going to do that? Has he told you? Because he's not so willing to share it with me."

Stefan crosses his arms reluctantly answering, "he isn't sharing it with me either."

"Yeah, well, until he does I don't trust him. Besides," she mimics him and crosses her arms across her chest, "we have bigger problems."

Stefan brows knitted in concern, "What's wrong?"

"Jules told Tyler about you and Damon. He knows that Damon killed Mason and I helped. The latter part he found out for me. Tyler was so upset. The look on his face, he was so betrayed."

"This is bad."

"You can't tell Damon." He already wanted to kill him. She knew that if he knew Tyler knew they were vampires and that they killed Mason than there was nothing stopping him for killing him. "He already wants to kill him. He thinks all werewolves should die."

"He's not wrong to think that. I mean, what if Tyler tries to retaliate? He has every right to. He could get himself killed."

"We can't let that happen. We have to get to him to see reason before he does something stupid, like confront Damon. Can you talk to him? Try to explain. You're better at getting people to see reason. He and I...we're friends. And it's our fault that Katherine triggered the curse, If I hadn't went after Mason…."

"If I do this," he comes back with a bargin of his own. "You have to keep Damon from killing John."

"How am I supposed to do that when I want him dead just as much as Damon?"

"He trust's you."

"He loves her more." Stefan looks down knowing that she was telling the truth. "But if it means that I keep Tyler from getting hurt or worse, I'll do it. Text me after you talk to him and let me know how it goes."

He nods and she leaves to go track down Damon. She starts at her house which was the last place she saw John. Neither he, Elena, nor Jenna were home. She remembers hearing John mention something about the memorial that the mayor was having for all the victims of the crime wave to hit the town the last few days and figures she'd start there.

John is talking to Damon when she walk in and she starts towards them but is stop by Matt.

"Hey!"

She averts her attention away from them. "Hey."

"I haven't seen you since the watering hole." He walks towards the table and she follows.  
"I'm starting to get the feeling you're avoiding me."

"I'm not avoiding you Matt," she says as they sit down at the table across from each other. "There's just a lot going on with me right now and I don't want to drag you into it."

"You've been there for me for the stuff with my mom and Vick," he reminds her.

"Yeah but this is different," she wishes she could tell him how different it was, especially with Tyler finding out about what she did to Mason. She was back to having no one to talk to. "There are things going on in my life right now…" she knew she wasn't going to get away with not telling him anything so she tells him what she could. She cut her eyes over to where John just walked away from Damon.

"John is back?"

"He got back this morning."

"I didn't know he knew Stefan's brother."

"There's a lot you don't know Matt," she says but didn't mean to, not a loud anyway but she had and she knew she had to say something so she stuck with telling him about her feelings for Damon and how he was in love with Elena. She told him about seeing Tyler to get over Damon but it wasn't working and what's worse Tyler found out and wasn't speaking to her. "He was so angry when I saw him this morning. I've made a mess of things."

He set about consoling her but he didn't have a chance because he had to get back to work. She gets up from the table stepping away from the table to text Stefan to check in on his progress with Tyler. She had hopes that he was able to get through to him. She heard other wise and left to go talk to him herself hoping that she would be able to talk to him. She wanted him to see how dangerous it was for him to go after Damon.

She text Stefan to let him know that she was on her way as she left the grill. She walks to the car.

"Excuse me," She turns at the sound of Jules. "It's Alyssa right?"

"Good memory." She puts on a fake smile but that was believable. "Your Mason's friend Jules, from Florida."

"I see I'm not the only one with good memory. I'm looking for Tyler. You haven't seen him, have you?"

"I haven't seen him since earlier," she pulls out her keys. "But if I see him I'll tell him that you were looking for him." She walks towards her car.

"I don't think you will."

She stops annoyed and turn to her, "Really? So aside from being a wolf you're now a psychic."

"No, but I can tell you're lying."

"So," she closes the car door, "what if I am? It won't be another full moon for weeks," she grabs her by her neck and begins to choke her lifting her off the ground. "Too bad you won't leave long enough to see it."

Jules fumbles with something in her pockets spraying her with vervain. Her face starts to burn and she drops her until she's healed. Red veins appears on her face and her eyes change. When she turns back around, but Brady is standing in front of her and shoots her point blank in the head. She drops to the ground.

* * *

Alyssa sits up look around and that's when she's gain her wits feels a sharp pain in her head and begins to scream. She feels around for the whole in her head and she digs the bullet out of her head and numbly drops it. She sees clearly for the first time that she's in a cage and tries to dent the bars but is unable to. She then tries to unlock the cage reaching her hand through the bars but sees Brady and stops.

"I see you got the bullet out. That was nasty. I got lots of wooden bullets, other toys. It's gonna be a long night, sweet pea." He shoots her in the chest. She grunts in pain trying not to show how much she is in pain and turns to look at him.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to do make worse then kill you. I'm going to make it hurt...alot"

He shoots her in the chest pushing her back to the cage. When she's catches her breath, she digs out the bullet and drops it to the cage. She looks at him. "That's the best you got."

He shoots her in the leg and and she digs her nails into the bottom of the cage her head hitting the back of it from the blast of the pain.

Jules walks into the trailer holding a phone, "he needs proof."

Brady obliges her buy shooting her in the shoulder and she falls to the bottom of the cage with a scream. Jules leaves and she lays there until she is able to dig the bullets out arm and leg.

"So, how many vampires are there in this town anyway?"

She doesn't answer, so he shoots her with a squirt gun filled with vervain. She bites down on his cheek to stop from screaming.

"No?"

"Bite me."

"Not today sweetheart, maybe in a few weeks."

"You won't be breathing in a few weeks."

"Yeah?" he comes closer to the cage and she reaches out to grab him and he jumps back. "You're a tough one aren't you?"

"Let me out and I'll show you."

He sits back he uses a blowgun to shoot wooden darts in her neck and she lets out a cry. "I'll past."

She kicks at the cage in an effort to free herself and he gets up and leave.

She lays in the cage recovering her strength to once again try and free herself. She reaches for the latch for a second time when the door to the RV opens and Tyler comes inside. He sees Alyssa in the cage.

"Tyler, there's a latch on the door and I can't get to it."

He hesitates.

"Tyler? Tyler, please! Tyler?"

Tyler opens the cage so she can leave, but Jules grabs her, pushes her face-first against the RV and puts a gun to her back. Tyler comes out of the RV and sees being held at gunpoint, but he doesn't do anything.

Jules looks at Tyler and in that brief distraction Alyssa uses her vamp speed to free herself leading a blow to the side of her head knocking her on the ground. She sees Brady grab a stake and is about to kill Damon and she runs over to him before he can but is quickly surrounded before she could make through with her promises. She looks around at the gathering wolves still with stakes in their hands around stakes.

Suddenly, all of the werewolves except Tyler begin to scream in pain. They all cover their ears with their hands and fall to their knees.

Jonas Martin appears. He's walking with his hands held out while he's casting a spell on the werewolves. Alyssa pulls the bullet out of Damon's chest and he and Stefan gets up off the ground.

Jonas walks towards them. "Elijah made a promise to Elena. I'm here to see it's upheld. You need to go. Get out of here. Now."

* * *

Stefan and Damon accompanies her to the door after they were rescued by Jonas.

She turns to them when they reach the front door but before anyone could say a word, it's thrown open and Elena comes out, "thank god." She pulls her into a hug and then pulls away looking her over. "Are you okay?"

"Nothing a hot shower and sleep can't cure. Speaking of which, I'm going to go take one before Jenna sees me and starts asking question that she shouldn't." She walks inside before anyone could ask her how she was doing again and took a shower burying her clothes in the bottom of the hamper so Jenna wouldn't see it. She grabbed a pair of shorts and and tank to top out of the draw to change into when her phone vibrates lighting up on the bed with a message from Tyler which she ignores and changes.

Her phone lights up again with a message from Tyler letting her know that he was outside and that he wants to talk.

She thinks about ignoring it but he lets her know that he isn't going anyway until he talks to her and she reluctantly meets him outside.

He asses her quickly before meeting her eyes again asking, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. No thanks to your new friends."

"I had no idea they would come for you."

"They're werewolves Tyler, what do you think was going to happen."

"I'm sorry, but it's crazy now, okay? I don't know who to trust. You lied to me."

"Yeah. I did. But guess what, I've lied to everyone including at some point and I still am because I've had to, for reasons just like tonight. Because I don't want what could have happened to me to happen to them. I was trying to protect them just like I was trying to do for you. But you couldn't give me that same courtesy. You just stood there when they were going to kill us. You just stood there! You didn't do anything!"

"I didn't know what to do!"

"You help your friend, that's what you do!" She took a deep breath to calm herself so that she wouldn't do anything out of anger or wouldn't wake Jenna. "Like I did for you, that night in the cellar the first night you turned. I put my life on the line to help you Tyler because that's what you do for someone that you care about but obviously this friendship or whatever it was doesn't mean as much to you."

He tries to reach out for her, "I'm sorry."

She steps back from his grasp, "no, it's too late, because whatever that was is over.

You choose your side and you need to go back to them. There's nothing left here for you anymore." He slowly backs away with regret in his eyes and she steps inside shutting the door behind her.

She returns upstairs to finish getting ready for bed and gets under the covers once she's done. She leans forward to turn of the lamp beside her bed and lays down pulling the covers over her shoulder.

She shifts to her right coming face to face with Damon. He moves her hair off to the side of her neck and inspects it to make sure that she has completely healed before checking the spot on her arm where she was shot.

It's still a bit red from where she dug the bullet out and he lightly runs his thumb over the bruising and she tries to ignore the feeling she got from that slightest touch.

"It's not as bad as it looks."

"I'm going to kill that Tyler kid."

"He's not going to be around after tonight. I told him he should leave town with Jules. There's nothing here for him anymore. Can you stay?"

He pulls her to him and she rest her head on his chest.


	13. Crying Wolf

"Planning on running away?" Elena turns at the sound of her sister's voice to see her leaning against the inside of her bedroom door. "Can't say that I blame you considering someone wants you dead. "

"No," she folds up a blue shirt and tucks it away in her bag. "Stefan and I are going away for the weekend. After everything, we just need a break from it."

"I get wanting to get away from it all for a while. Hell I tried that more than once myself. It never lasted long but it was fun while it lasted. If anybody could use that right now it's you."

Elena grabs a pair of jeans out of the draw and walks over to the her suitcase with them. "I ran into Damon last night."

"He came to make sure I was okay after what happened last night."

She place her jeans in her suitcase and walk over to her, "how are you?"

She shrugs, "embarrassed, feeling a little stupid. I trusted Tyler not just with my secret. I started to feel something for him but after last night…."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too. But, you are going away with Stefan for the weekend so just focus on that. Put all the mess behind you for a while and let me worry about making sure Damon keeps your deal with Elijah, who I think it's by time I officially meet."

Elena looks at her with a worried look on her face but she does nothing to assure her that and instead leaves her room making a call on her way out. "We need to talk." She says when he answers the phone.

"That's funny Damon said the same thing." Alaric responds. "I'm at his place right now."

"Great stay there, I'm on my way." She hangs up as she walks out of the door. Stefan is waking up at the same time. "Elena's still packing."

"Yeah I know." He called ahead to make sure. "I wanted to check on you. How are you?"

"I wish everyone would stop asking me that." He still expects her to answer and she knew it by the way he looks at her. "I'm...trying to make sense of it I guess. It's all I've seen to be doing lately. I mean I trusted Tyler and he just stood there while they were going to kill us while she was going to kill me. Seeing him just stand there hurt far worse than anything that they could have done to me."

Stefan gave her a sympathetic look and she quickly changes the subject.

"Elena's probably finishing packing. You should probably leave before uncle John decides to play the daddy role."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah I am. I was just going to go get myself an invite to a tea party." She walks past him to get to her car and he turns and watches as she drives away.

* * *

"Right on time," Alaric says as he opens the door and she walks into parlor where she sees Damon. He's standing near a table were a dagger lays on a white cloth. "We were just discussing how to kill an Original."

She picks up the dagger in which Ric had reference, "this is suppose to kill and original?" It hardly looked like it was going to cause any real damage let alone be able to kill something as old as the first vampire in history.

"It' a gift from Dear ole Uncle John," says Damon to her. "He said you have to dip the dagger in the remains of an old white ash tree that dates back to the Originals, if there's any truth in that."

"Of course there isn't," she watches him walk over to the bar. "You think he'd trust you with the one weapon that can supposedly kill an original?"

"You think it can be a setup?" Alaric asks after hearing how sure she had sounded.

Damon turns them with his glass in his hand, "could be. Guy's a weasel. Wouldn't put anything past him."

"You can't use it until I can verify that he's telling the truth." She was more than sure that they couldn't trust him but if there was even the slightest chance that it was going to work she needed to find out one way or another.

Ric unsure of how exactly she was going to do that asked what he was thinking. "We didn't even that a weapon like that existed."

"But now I do, and now that I know he knows I know all the right buttons to push to get him to talk."

Ric and Damon exchange glances that she interprets to mean they have their doubts.

She responds to those looks by reminding them just of what she was able to accomplish so far. "Seriously, after everything that's happened you doubt I can do this. Who was the one who put his connection with Isabelle together and correctly deducted that Katherine had been on the run from something? And who was the one who got the information we needed about Klaus." They exchange another look. "Just give me twenty four hours to figure it out before you attempt to use it."

Damon looks to Alaric who leaves it up to Damon to decide whether or not to give her the time to see what if anything she could get out of John. "I'm going to let the two of you handle it. Jenna and I got roped into doing this Historical Society thing at the Lockwood."

"About that," She says getting to the reason she had called in the first place. "Do you think you can get me invited to it?"

"Why would you want to spend the day at the historical society?"

"She heard Elijah's going to be there." Damon quickly and correctly deducts.

She smiles at Damon, "two points for you."

Alaric looks at the two of them in concern. "Tell me the two of you are not gonna kill him at the tea party."

"No. That would be stupid." Alaric gives Damon a skeptical look."I want to know his endgame before I kill him."

"Which won't be until after we're sure John is telling the truth about it." She tells him even though she knows he isn't going to follow through. "Damon," she calls and follows him as he walks away. "You won't use that thing until we're sure it's safe. Right?"

"Right." He agrees but Alyssa didn't exactly believe him.

"Damon," she says in a warning tone which Damon finds amusing.

"Now why does this sound familiar?"

"So that's what this is? Payback? For all the times that I didn't listen to you and do what I was told?"

"Annoying isn't it." Damon walks past her and she turns to look at him.

Alaric felt a little uneasy at we're things were beginning to head, "if you don't need me I'm going to go."

"Sneaking off to visit some newly un-tombed vamp and helping you save your brother is nothing compared to going up against one of the first vampire ever created with a weapon from my uncle who hates vampires. Who's to say that it will kill him or what if it kills you in the process?"

"Okay," Alaric leaves the house without either Damon or Alyssa noticing.

"Or it can work and Elena will be safe."

"Until Klaus shows up and we have to find another way to save her. I know that it's not what you want to hear but Elijah is offering us a truce. He's already saved us once and got Stefan out of the tomb. I say we leave the original killer to the real threat."

"Elijah is here now. And we don't know what he wants or if we can trust anything he says."

"So you're willing to trust a guy who tried to filet you but you won't trust the one who saved our lives and kept your brother from rotting in a tomb for the next 162 years?"

"What can I say?" He shrugs nonchalantly, "I'm a complicated person."

"And I'm trying to keep you from being a permanent dead one and if you're not going to care about your own life then I guess I'll to." She leaves the Salvatore house on a mission that landed her on Bonnie's door step. "I need your help," she says walking inside.

* * *

"Sure come on in," Bonnie sarcastically says following her inside of the living room.

"Sorry about busting in you like this but I don't really have time for pleasantries."

"What? Need my help kidnapping someone else?" She meant as something sarcastic but it ends up giving Alyssa an idea.

"Now that you mention it, that wouldn't be a bad idea."

"I wasn't serious."

"Well, I am. See I'm kind of desperate and I don't have a lot of time to play nice or to do the whole threaten and torture routine like I did with Mason so I was hoping we could just skip that part and you can do some hocus-pocus thing like you did with finding out where the moonstone is from Mason but to Luka."

"What do you need with Luka?"

"Information on Elijah, and what he has plan for Elena. I don't exactly trust the guy but I trust Uncle John less."

Bonnie looks at her, confusion written on her face and it's then that she remembers that she doesn't know he full story.

"Right, sorry, short version, Damon has a weapon that could supposedly kill an original but I don't trust the source of this information so before he goes on a possible suicide mission I need to know whether or not Elijah is to be trusted. Hence kidnapping kid Merlin."

Bonnie thought about her proposal and she knew that it was the only way to see if they could truly take Elijah for his word. "I guess I could come up with a spell or something to force him into talking."

"Great. Go with that. Bring Caroline for backup in case it doesn't go as planned."

"What are you going to doing?"

"Attending the historical society tea party."

Bonnie looks at her incredulously and Alyssa explains herself, "Elijah is the guest of honor and I'd like to look someone directly in the eye if I'm going to stab them in the back."

Bonnie doesn't know what to say to her so instead she wishes her luck and Alyssa goes home to get ready for the party. She chooses a red lace dress that she brought when she went out shopping with Jenna with what she thought was her finally moments. She threw a black leather jacket on top running a quick brush through her hair and tied it in a ponytail. She grabs her heels on the way out of her room along with a purse pen and paper.

The house was packed with guest when she pulled up to Lockwood estate. When she walks in, she's immediately met by Mrs. Lockwood who was surprised at her presence there and quickly set about telling her that Tyler wasn't there.

"I know. I'm here for the tea party."

Her look of confusion clues her in to her not knowing what she was talking about. So she fills her in on something that hadn't actually happened.

"Mr. Saltzman said that he talked to you and you agreed for me to come talk to the historical writer for an extra credit assignment for history. I know it's a bit last minute," she says when she could see her starting to refuse, "but I could really use the extra credit. Please."

She reluctantly smiles and agreed a minute later and shows her into the house to make the introductions. They pass Jenna and Rick along the way along with Damon and Andie Star the news reporter.

"Hi. Elijah," she politely interrupts a conversation he was having. "I want you to meet Alyssa Gilbert. Her family is one of Mystic Falls' founding families."

He assesses her slowly. "Is that so?"

"I hear you've done a lot of research on Mystic Falls and I was hoping that I could ask you a few questions about your research. I've kind of developed a small obsession with our town's history being that I am apart of the original founding family."

"It's such a rarity to find young people interested in learning about town history."

"It seems to be all I can think about."

"Why don't we go somewhere a little more private so we can."

Carol volunteers volunteers. "You should have plenty of privacy in there."

"Shall we," he gestures for her to lead the way which she does.

She shoots Damon a look warning him to not try and stop her as she passes.

She keeps her back to Elijah as he walks in. She takes a look around the room she's seen dozens of times before turning to him once she hears the door closing.

"I could tell by the fleeting look you gave to Damon Salvatore," he starts looking to his left as he runs his finger across the back of the couch before meeting her eyes, "you know who I am."

She wordlessly nod.

"And you have questions for me?"

"Yes." She walks closer to him but make sure that she keeps some distance between them even though it wouldn't do any good if he had any intentions to hurt her. There was nothing she could do to stop him but it didn't mean she didn't come prepared. "But first I wanted thank you for saving me and my friends. We would have died if it weren't for you."

"I gave Elena my word that I would keep the people she loved safe."

"Rose once told me that out of the originals you were the most honorable. If you make a deal with someone you won't break it."

"And I suppose you came here tonight seeking some kind of deal."

"Only the one you've already made with Elena."

He looks at her confuse but is willing to hear her out.

"I want to keep the people that I love safe. I've seen enough of this world to know that there's always collateral damage when the dust clears. I want to make sure that my family doesn't share the same fate."

"What do you propose?"

"I know the ritual requires Elena to die in order for it to work. I'd be lying if I said that I'd be broken up about it if it happens, too much has passed between us and there's a lot of resentment there mostly on my part. My life would definitely be a lot simpler if she were out of the way. While I do love her, I'm not about to risk the lives of my entire family for an off chance that she can be saved."

"What is it that you're trying to say?"

"I want to make sure the people that I love stay safe and if Elena has to die so that can happen, then so be it."

"And what about your own? You are aware that the spell requires the sacrifice of a vampire. What if I were to ask that be you?"

"The one thing you should know about me Mr. Smith, I'll do whatever it takes to protect the people that I love. If you were to require that I'd be the sacrifice to ensure their safety then you have your sacrificial lamb."

"And how do you know I won't break my word the moment that ritual is complete?"

She picks up and studies a sharp object off the table in front of her. "You ever hear of the stories of woman who exhibited supernatural strength when they children are seconds away from being killed. Well, I'm like that when it comes to my family." She tosses it at him and he catches it. She pulls out a steak from her purse and vamps speed over to him plunging it into his chest, "I'll do whatever it takes to protect them," he starts to desiccate, "and I can assure you Elijah, you don't want to see what anything looks like."

He falls to the ground and she leaves the steak in his chest stepping over his body and walks to the door. When she opens it, Alaric, John, and Damon are standing on the other side. They see Elijah laying on the ground behind her and then looks back at her all with different variations of surprise and shock.

"You gonna wanna make sure no one goes in there." She says as she walks past them leaving the Lockwood Mansion she drives over to the Forbes where Bonnie has captured Luka and is currently working her magic on him.

She sees Jeremy standing just outside of the door watching Bonnie kneeling behind Luka's head with her hands pressed to his temples surrounded by candles.

"Jeremy?"

He turns to her. "Hey, yeah, Bonnie's still in the middle of the spell with Luka. He's been fighting her but I think she's starting to get through."

"What are you even doing here?"

"Bonnie called and told me what you guys were planning. I wanted to help."

"I thought we agreed that you were going to stay out of it."

"No, you and Elena agreed."

"Yeah and for good reason for that. You almost got yourself killed trying to play the knight in shining armor."

"You and Elena risks you lives everyday…."

"So you don't lose yours."

Luka begins to finale speak, "well talk about this later." She says so she can focus on what Luka is saying. In the end, they stand outside of Caroline's home after having gotten the information out of Luka and it wasn't good. Alyssa walks over to Bonnie and Jeremy after her and Caroline manages to Luka into the car.

"Can you take him home?" Alyssa says to Bonnie after they managed to get Luka into Bonnie's car. "I tried calling Damon to tell him what we've found about Elijah but he's not answering."

"Yeah sure," Bonnie agrees and Alyssa turns to Jeremy.

"We're not done talking." She turns around and walks over to her car. She pulls up to the Salvatore house walking up to the house, she sees that Damon isn't alone inside of the house. Jules is standing in front of him with three other werewolves and she doesn't hesitate in rushing in wanting to rush in but gets stopped by Elijah.

He releases her shortly after, "wait here," he steps in front of her to go inside. She counts off thirty seconds in her head before following him in to see him leaning against a banister. She begins to survey the scene in front of her and sees Alaric dead on the floor and looks to his finger to make sure he's still wearing his ring and she relieve to see that he was. She then looks to Damon who meets her eyes with surprise.

Elijah walks down the stairs and places the moonstone on an end table. He backs away.

"Go ahead. Take it." Elijah challenges and one of the werewolves uses his wolf speed to rush towards the moonstone, but Elijah, being quicker, plunges his hand into the wolf's chest and rips out his heart. The wolf falls down onto the couch, dead. Two other wolves rush at Elijah and Elijah, without any effort, plunges his arms into their chests and rips out their hearts as well. Jules wolf-speeds out of the house before she is killed. Elijah walks over to Stevie, who crouches down and pulls his jacket over his face in fear. Elijah pulls him up from the ground.

Alyssa runs over to Damon and pulls the chains out of his neck setting him free while Elijah still talks to Stevie.

"What about you, sweetheart, hmm? You want to take a shot? Yes? No? Yes?" He looks at Alyssa and Damon asking Damon, "Where's the girl?"

Damon looks around before answering, "I don't know."

Elijah shrugs it off, "it doesn't really matter."

Elijah punches Stevie in the face and Stevie falls to the floor. He turns to Damon.

"So you realize this is the third time I've saved your life now?"

Damon doesn't respond. Elijah turns around, grabs the moonstone, and walks out of the house.

Against her better judgement, Alyssa follows Elijah. He stops when he notices and turns around. "Thank you." She says humbling knowing that he didn't have to do it, "You could have let him died, especially after earlier."

"You mean when you stuck a stake through my heart. I'm quite curious to know what you thought that would accomplish." He knew she knew that it wouldn't kill him still she risked it

"Is was the only I could know for sure if you'd keep the promise you made to Elena."

"And here I thought it was to prove a point."

"That too." She turns and goes back inside after he doesn't respond to see Damon moving the chair he was tied to back to its original place.

"I thought you'd be dead."

She crosses her arms as she approach him stopping where his blood had circled around the chair, "if that were true you wouldn't have let me leave. Looks like we got here just in time."

"What are you doing here anyway?"

"I tried calling but you didn't answer. I figured you might need my help," she looks around the room at the bodies of the wolves, "looks like I was right. I also wanted to tell you what we found out about Elijah's plan from Luka."

She fills him on the plan she had concocted with Bonnie to get Luka to confess.

"So he planned to kill her all along."

"Yeah. The sacrifice is part of Elijah's plan. So we gotta make sure that dagger really works or Elena isn't the only ones who's going to be sacrificed. He still needs a vampire for it to work. Wonder which one of us it'll be."

Before he gets a chance to answer, Alaric comes back from the dead.

Damon looks to him as he picks up the chains from the floor as Alaric attempts to awaken, "Finally. You missed all the fun."

Alyssa watches as Alaric tries to gain his bearings after dying before going to help Damon clean up by getting rid of the werewolves. When she comes back in from burying the bodies, Alaric is on the phone with Jenna making some lame excuse about why he didn't pick her up. From the sound of it, she wasn't buying it.

"You have got to get better at lying." She tells him when he gets off the phone. "Cause she's starting to get suspicious."

"I wish I didn't have to lie to her at all."

"You know why we have to."

"Yeah," he agrees getting up, "it doesn't make it easy."

She watches him leave and turns to Damon as he walks back into the room.

"Think it's safe to let him leave after his recent awakening from the other side."

"He'll be fine."

"I hope I can say the same thing about you when this is all over." She leans up from her position on the wall and leaves.

* * *

Tyler is waiting outside for her when she goes home. "Before you say anything, I just came by to say that I'm going to take you up on your advice." He says to her upon seeing her knowing that he was probably the last person she wanted to see. "I'm leaving town. I just wanted to say goodbye ad be careful. I may not understand everything that's going on but I know that whatever you're in the middle of is dangerous. I also know your not going to just walk away and watch the people you love get hurt."

"You're right, I'm not."

"Just be careful okay." He walks past her leaving the porch.

"Tyler," she calls out to him and turns to face him. He stops and does the same. "Take care of yourself."

"You too." He walks over to the truck that's waiting and gets in. She watches as they pull of before walking inside.


	14. The Dinner Party

"Voicemail, again," Alyssa says annoyed as she pull on the strings of her boots, "not that I'm surprised." She pulls on the second boot and laces it up. She stands up and walks out of her room grabbing her coat. "I just thought you wanted to know that Tyler left town which solves one of our problems. That leaves Elijah."

She comes to a stop in the kitchen where Elijah is sitting in the kitchen sipping tea with Jenna. She hangs up the phone keeping her eyes on Elijah wondering exactly how much he had heard. The smile on his face when he sees her didn't give anything away and it wasn't because he was happy to see her either. Rather he was reacting to her worried and surprised reaction to seeing him in her kitchen.

She looks Jenna who doesn't sense the tension in her niece and answers the unanswered question of what Elijah was doing at their house. "I'm giving him a tour of some of Mystica Falls historical sights."

"Are you?" She turns to Elijah whose smile turns into a smirk before she readdresses Jenna. "And you're wearing that?"

Jenna looks down at her outfit, a pair of dark blue jeans a white top. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

"Nothing, it's perfectly sensible," She looks at Elijah who seems a bit perplexed as to what she was planning yet still quite amused. "But do you really want to ruin your favorite pair of boots tramping through the old lockwood property."

"How did you know that's what I was going to be showing Elijah?"

"Research, the paper that I'm working on for history remember. It is one of the oldest properties in Mystic Falls."

Her answered seemed to be logical yet Jenna couldn't help but to be a little skeptical. "Right?" To Elijah she says, "I'll be right back." She leaves the kitchen and Elijah addresses Alyssa as Jenna goes.

"I take it Jenna doesn't know." He knew that was her reason for sending her away.

"About you or your plan to sacrifice Elena?" She walks over to the counter to start a pot of coffee instead of drinking the tea that had been made. "No, and I'd like to keep it that way. People have a way of ending up dead after discovering the town's secret. I'd like to avoid Jenna ending up on that list."

"Your very protective of the people you love," he notes as she turns away from him to grab a traveling mug. He remembered the fierce look she got in her eyes right before she stabbed him in the middle of the historical societies tea party. "It'd almost be commendable if it weren't so dangerous."

"To me or to you?" She asks over her shoulder. He doesn't answer and turns back to the coffee pot pouring the black steaming liquid into her mug adding six spoonfuls of sugar. She turns to him when she's done.

"Most people in your predicament would see it as a weakness, something to be exploited and twisted to fit someone else's purpose." He continues and she rests her hip against the counter considering his words.

"Is that what you're doing? Appealing to my need to protect my family in order to get what you want?"

"Elena is your family, and yet you willing express your desire to hand her over to die, even though you've proven that you'll stop at nothing to ensure the safety of your family."

"Elena's death is the only assurance I have that they will be safe from Klaus. Katherine told me how Klaus slaughtered her entire family because of what she did the first time he tried to break the curse. I'm not about to let whatever Damon and Stefan have planned to save her life be the reason they all get killed. Her life isn't worth that much to me, and neither is mine for that matter, not if it means every single person I love dies because of it. So if you manipulating me by appealing to that primal need to protect them keeps them alive then I'll happily play the pinocchio in your puppertier act."

She tastes her coffee finding it a bit bitter she turns around to add more sugar saying, "It's why I think you should know my uncle, Elena's birth father, is looking for a weapon he thinks can kill you. He's desperate to find it and it's why he came back. He said something about a white oak tree."

His response or lack of one told her that at least John was on the right track. She turns back around putting on a confuse yet concern look, "but that's nothing right? I mean it can't actually kill you."

He opens his mouth to speak but Jenna voice came out which follows her presence in the kitchen having changed and Alyssa knew the opportunity for her to find out any more information for the moment had passed but she knew from his reaction there was going to be another chance to create opportunities.

"I'm going to let you guys get to whatever it is you were going to do." She takes her mug and starts to leave the kitchen. She gets as far as the door behind Elijah stops her with his words asking her if she would like to come with them on an historical tour on the town, for her paper.

She smirks privately before turning around with a nonchalant shrug, "one more day to work on it wouldn't hurt." She then turns to Jenna to ask for her permission which she skeptically gives wondering what her real motives are for wanting to come along and waits for the right time to question her about her intentions which happens to fall in the middle of the towns tour.

They just arrive on the Lockwood property and Elijah is out of earshot so Jenna thinks it's safe to ask, "okay, now that we're alone, tell me, why did you really agree to come?"

She looks at Jenna knowingly but turns and looks at Elijah, "isn't it obvious. I mean look at him; cute, smart, rich." She turns to Jenna who's taking the survey's out of the car, "can you imagine the body under that suit." Jenna hands her one of the bags she stuck the rolled up surveys in a bag. Alyssa gives her a scandalous look, "or do you not have to?"

Jenna shuts the trunk of the car before responding to her niece, and her response was not to respond to her question rather mind her of the fact that Elijah has a few years on her. To that Alyssa replies that she'll be eighteen in a year as they stop alongside Elijah.

Alyssa announces, "Next on our tour of old ass things that nobody cares about."

"If you didn't care it's a wonder you even bothered showing up at all." Response Elijah.

"Your offered to help me with my paper and since I don't want to fail Rick's class I decided to take you up on your offer. Besides, I love listening to you more than I would have reading some dusty old textbook." She sticks her hands in her pockets and walk away. Elijah smiles shyly because he knows her response was to him listening to the conversation she was having with Jenna.

Her phone rings and she walks away and she pulls it out of her jacket pocket to see that it's Damon finally returning her call. She answers speaking before he gets a chance to get a word out in case he says something that she wouldn't want to been overheard by Elijah. "So nice of you of you to return my calls."

"I was busy."

"Yeah and now I'm am. I'm with Jenna and Elijah. We're taking a tour of the old property lines."

She looks back to see Elijah walking with Jenna. They appear to be in the middle of a discussion but she wasn't willing to risk Elijah over hearing anything; especially if that anything had anything to do with the dagger and white oak ash that John gave him.

"I just thought you would want to know about Tyler leaving."

"And you're sure he's gone?"

"He came by last night to tell me that he was leaving and to warn me to be careful. Jules must have told him about the curse and after what happened to her friends I'm guessing she high tailed it out of here."

"That's one bit of good news."

"Are we any closer to finding out about whether or not John got his hands on the white oak?" Damon is silent and she assures him that they're not being listening in on. "He's tied up with questions from Jenna."

She hopes that he was able to catch on to her choice of words and not reveal what she had been hoping to keep from Elijah since she revealed that she knew that white oak could in someway harm an original. "I know Stefan thinks we can trust him but I doubt that Elijah would even allow a weapon that could kill him to continue to exist."

"Let's hope he's dumb enough to and John's able to find it."

"Funny how we're entrusting John with our lives when it wasn't that long ago he nearly turned you into a deep fried vamp extra crispy. I know were desperate but I don't like being this desperate but maybe Stefan's right. Maybe there isn't any other choice but to trust John. I'll just have to remind him what will happen if he tries and cross us." She hangs up and Elijah appears next to her.

"Now I hope that little act wasn't done solely for my benefit."

"By act, you mean that I was proving to you that what I said earlier about them looking for a weapon that can kill you then yes," she puts her phone back in her pocket, "I was. Where's Jenna?" She looks behind her but doesn't see.

"I believe the history teacher is helping her retrieve something from the car." She looks back to where they park to see that she's in fact at the car with Rick. "Now back to this potential weapon that can kill me."

"You know as much about as I do, probably more. All I know is that Stefan went looking for Isabelle the moment you rolled into town to tell us more about Klaus. He got my Uncle John instead and he says that he knows of a way to save Elena. He doesn't exactly trust me and he would be right not to so he hasn't told me a thing. The part about the white oak he slip unintentionally. Or so he thinks." He raises a brow at this, "let's just say I know the right buttons to push when it comes to getting what I want."

"Then maybe I'll have some use for you after all."

"As long as you keep up your end of the deal I'm happy to help in which every way I can." She tells him and tries to walk away but he grabs her by the arm stopping her and she turns to look at him.

"If you're in anyway playing me…"

"You'll what Elijah?" She asks with incredulous look, "Kill me or my family? If you haven't gotten it yet then you clearly haven't been paying attention. So let me spell it out for you. Your threats have little impact, one because I'm already dead so you threatening to kill me would only serve on doing something I was willing to already do myself. Two, you're deal with Elena means you don't hurt anyone she cares about. Seeing as how she's the reason I'm a vampire in the first place that means I fall on that list of people you can't hurt. You kill me you loose Elena. You lose Elena than you can't kill Klaus. Then there's the whole potential weapon floating around out there somewhere that can kill you and without me you won't know where it is or how to get to it first so the way I see it." She removes his hands off her, "you need me as much as I need you which means like it or not we're going to have to trust each other." She begins to walk backwards away from him, "this should be interesting."

* * *

"How was your tour of all things mystic falls?" Alyssa had returned home from her four man tour of her small town and called Stefan. She was unsure of what Damon filled him in on and she wanted to make sure Elena hadn't done anything stupid like try to run to Klaus again trying to get herself killed seeing as how her deal with Elijah banked on Elena staying safe until he needed her. "Damon said you went on a historical sighting of the town with Elijah. You think it was the smartest choice to be alone with him after you tried to kill him?"

"It was the only way to be sure he would keep his word." She says as she studies her reflection in the mirror. "I think it's pretty safe to assume that he will seeing as how I'm still undead. Besides," she turn her back to the mirror to check herself out from behind, "I needed information that only he would be able to give me. This seemed like the only way to get it." She walks away from the mirror after doing a full inspection of herself and approved.

"What did you find out?"

"That John was telling the truth, at least about the part of the white oak. Elijah seemed really interested and worried when I mentioned that there might be a weapon out there that could kill him."

"What do you mean you mentioned it?"

She was back in front of the mirror to check her hair and makeup. "I told him that you were looking for a weapon that could kill him." She could practically see the frown lines etched in his face right now and told him so. "You really don't need to add anymore frowns on your face so relax. I only told him that you were looking for one not that you've found it. Well, I mentioned John was looking for it."

Stefan felt that she should remind her, "he's Elena's father."

"I'm well aware of that Stefan. In case you forgot," she walks away from the mirror again, "I'm the one who told you. I also know that he tried to kill Damon and if we give him a chance he'll try again. I'm certainly not about to let that happen and if you were here neither would you. Let's just call this precaution on my part. I suppose you heard about the dinner party at Casa De la Salvatore."

"Yeah, Damon called and filled me in."

"I think he's going to try and kill him tonight. I tried to talk him out of it but we both know when he's got his mind set on something there's no changing."

"Sounds like someone else I know."

"I know. Elena can be such a handful sometimes. I don't know how you put up with her."

He smiles despite himself, "must be a family trait."

"I suppose you've heard that Elijah still plans on sacrificing Elena."

"Yeah. I know. He was really careful about his words. He said that he was going to protect her friends. Elena's known for weeks."

"She wants to keep us safe. She wants to keep you safe. Can't say that blame her. If there was a chance everyone I loved died because of me I'd walk straight into fire myself."

"The only person that's dying is Elijah."

Alyssa wasn't about to risk her family life on that but she allowed Damon to follow through with his plans, for now. But if it didn't work, she had a back of plan of her own and it didn't include saving Elena.

* * *

"Something smells good." Alaric comes into the kitchen with Damon where Alyssa and Andie are preparing dinner for the party with Jenna. "Didn't think you cook." He says to Jenna.

"I don't think you can qualify what aunt Jenna makes as food."

Jenna tosses a chopped up carrot at her for response and Alyssa smiles back at her before turning to pot behind her.

Damon approaches. "Didn't know you cook."

She looks at him. "You're thinking of the wrong Gilbert girl." She then turns back to the pot. "Elena is the one that can't boil a pot of water without burning it. I use to cook all the time with my dad when I was little."

He hummed in response.

She sat the top on the pot and turns the fire down to a simmer. He catches a full view of what she's wearing as she walks away and raises a brow. Jenna catches his look and explains, "she's wanted to impress Elijah. I think someone has a crush."

"I don't have a crush. I just think he's cute." She defends her getting slightly more dressed up than usual. "So much better than high school guys."

"He is charming." Andie says and Alyssa nods in agreement. "Smart, and from the way he dresses loaded. There are far more worse guys to have a crush on."

"You know what you're absolutely right." She turns to Damon pointedly. "I've liked worse guys. It's time for a chance of pace."

"Isn't he like thirty?" Ric always the reasonable one says.

"I don't know. He was a little cagey on his age when I asked but nothing that can't be worked around." She grabs the plates and take them to the table. Jenna follows her with the silverware.

"So now that we're alone I have to ask. What's going on with you and Ric? I feel like there's some tension."

"I don't know. I really like him. It's more than like and I want it to work, but I can't help but feel that he's hiding something from me. And then I've got John whispering things in my ear about him."

"Well that's where you went wrong. Listening to Uncle John, what did he tell you that has you suddenly doubting him."

"Things I don't want to believe. Things I don't believe, not if they're coming from John's mouth."

"Then don't." She stops setting the table and stands to her for height looking at her aunt. "It's been a long time since I've seen you this into a guy. Don't let John of people make you stop doubting who Ric is."

"I just can't help but feel like he's hiding something."

"Then talk to him. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation to why you feel that way or why he's projecting that. Just don't give up on him yet okay."

Jenna nods and turns to answer the door when it rings. John is outside on the porch and walks into the house. Damon walks out of the library and into the front hall.

"Who invited him?" asks Jenna.

"John." Damon says, "Surprise. Leave."

John ignores them all and says, "when Jenna told me she was coming to a dinner party for Elijah, I decided I couldn't miss out on all the fun and games."

Alaric walks in. Damon and John look at him.

"There are not going to be any games tonight, John. It's just a friendly dinner party."

John looks back at Damon. "What he said."

John walks further into the room staying despite knowing wanting him there. Alyssa walks over to Damon. "I guess that means you haven't told Rick what you were planning."

"Less things that can go wrong with the fewer people that know."

"I guess you're right. Just remember what I said, anything happens to Jenna or Jeremy in your attempt to save Elena. Klaus isn't the only one you're going to have to save her from." She walks away from him and over to the door.

Elijah is standing on the other side of the door as she tries to leave and he smiles when she sees her.

"Good evening."

"Hi, right on time." She steps aside to let him in. "The food's almost ready and everyone's here. Enjoy your evening." She turns to leave and Elijah stops her.

"Your leaving?"

If Alyssa didn't know any better she'd say he'd sounded disappointed. "Yeah. I just came to help out with dinner. I wasn't invited but that didn't seem to stop some people." She says looking to John.

"Then consider this a formal invitation."

She hesitates. "I'm not sure I'm old enough to sit at the grownup table just yet. Even if I was, I'm not really comfortable with certain company." He gives her a questioning look. "My Uncle John's presence tends to bring out the worst in me. I'm still new to the whole containing the urge to kill thing. So to keep from having to restrain myself from ripping out his spleen through his stomach I better go."

"If the urge to kill becomes to much for you bare I'd be more than happy to dispose of him myself." He says holding out his hand.

She fought against her better judgement and grabs him hand allowing him to escort her back inside. "Did I mention how incredible you look?" It was simple black trousers that fit her hips a black halter top with a black blazer. She paired it red accessories and lips stick braiding the front side portion of her hair and draping it over her left shoulder.

She releases him hand. "So you did notice? I was starting to think the hours of work I put into the outfit was for nothing." She walks away leaving him to watch.

Soon it was time for dinner and they sat around the table discussing Elijah and his work.

Elijah mentions that there were a group of settler that migrated from Salem after the witch trials in the 1690's. Over the next hundred years they developed this community where they could feel safe from persecution.

Jenna guess that it was "Because they were witches."

Andie didn't see the tangible proof that there were any real witches in Salem.

Damon mentions, "Andie's a journalist. Big on facts."

"Well, the lore says that there was this wave of anti-witch hysteria. It broke out in the neighboring settlement, so these witches were rounded up. They were tied to stakes in a field together and, uh, burned. Some say you could hear the screams from miles around us. They were consumed by the fire. Could you pass the…"

"I wouldn't repeat this to the Historical Society." Jenna says.

John follows with, "It's starting to sound a little like a ghost story to me."

Damon was more interested in why he wanted to know the location of the "alleged massacres."

Elijah response with, "You know...a healthy historian's curiosity, of course."

The rest of dinner progresses much in the same fashion and after dinner Andie suggest that, "the gentlemen should take their drinks in the study."

Alyssa gets the feeling that Damon was the one to, 'suggest' she suggests it and gets up from the table to help clean to keep Jenna away from the library.

She was on her fourth plate when the phone rung and she sat it back down to answer it.

"Stefan?"

Alyssa listens to Stefan as he tell her about what they found in Jonathan Gilbert's journal and she runs into the library stopping at the steps to compose herself.

"Elijah," She calls out to him with a warm smile. "I was hoping that we could take a walk before desert. It's such a beautiful night out."

"Certainly." Elijah hands his glass to Damon, who drains it, and takes Andie's hand and they walk out of the room together.

"I'm just going to let Jenna know where I'm going." She let go of his hand and heads over to where Jenna was with Rick, next to her purse. She fills inside of her bag and begins to type out a message for Damon.

"So Elijah and I are going to take a walk," she hits send and slides it back in her purse, "but we'll back in time for dessert."

"Okay."

She smiles finding and walks away from Jenna and Rick going back over to Elijah. "Ready."

Damon comes up from the library as they pass and she looks at him as he gets her text that reads, the dagger will kill you if you use it.

He looks back up at her as they walk out the door.

* * *

"Thank you for accompanying me." She says once they made it back to the front door of the house.

"It was my pleasure."

"I should tell you that the reason I'd ask was because I think Damon was planning something before I got there. I don't know what but I know Damon and I know this dinner party isn't just a dinner party. Uncle John showing up confirmed it for me. I just couldn't let them do whatever it was they had planned. Who knows they still could go through with it. I just thought you should know. If only to protect Damon from himself."

"You care for him."

"I do. But his hearts with Elena and even though I know that I can't help the way I feel."

"As a vampire you have the ability to turn it off. Every emotion good and bad silenced by just a flip of a switch."

"Then who would I be? What would I be? As much as knowing that he could never feel even half of what for I do for him hurts, I still wouldn't want it to go away. Cause if I lose the pain then I loose the good parts too and I'll have no will or reason to want to continue. Love is the reason I fight. Love is what pushes me to make the hard decisions that no one else wants to make. So I've learned to push through the pain and there's a lot but I can't give in. I won't. What I am doesn't have to be who I am." She walks to her car gets in and drives off.

She's half way inside of the house when her phone goes off.

"Whatever it is Stefan will have to wait in the morning." She says going up the stairs.

She pauses when she hears him mention the dagger and that the only way that he would stay dead if they kept the dagger in. She uses her vamp speed running back to the Salvatore house. Damon's still in the library drinking when she runs in.

"Where's Elijah?"

"Resting comfortably in a cell."

He walks towards her with the dagger in his hand.

"Please tell me that's not the same dagger."

"It is." Ric turns to her. "Why?"

She run down to the cellar and opens the door.

"He's gone. Damn it." She tucks her hair behind her ears as Damon and Ric join. "He must be after Elena."

"Wasn't it suppose to kill him?"

"Only if you leave it in." She answers Damon who starts upstairs and she follows.

"He has a lead on us but if we hurry we should be able to catch him."

Damon stops and turns to her. "There is no we."

"The hell there isn't. I'm not going to let you go alone."

"Yes, you are." He snaps her neck and catches her before she falls. He places her gently on the couch. "Watch her."

"What am I supposed to do if she wakes up?"

"Lock her in the cell get creative just keep her here."

"She's not going to like that."

"I know." He leaves the house.

She woke up hours later gasping as she set up. She looks around and saw that he was no longer in the Salvatore house but back in her room and she wasn't alone.

"It's about time you woke up. I was starting to get bored."

She vamps speed out of the bed and over to him but he moves just before she could reach him. "Don't be obvious."

She picks up the closes thing to her and toss it at him and he caught it. She uses the distraction to use her speed and ran over to him kneeing him the gut.

"Had that coming."

She sat back on the bed watching him as he righted himself.

"Elena's fine by the way." He says flopping on the bed beside her.

She got up removing her blazer and began preparing for bed. "Elijah's daggered and laying in a cell in the basement."

"Congratulations," she says hanging up her blazer in the closet, "you've managed to keep Elena alive, for now." She turns to face him, "of course there's still Klaus and with you using the only weapon known to kill an Original on Elijah there's no way of saving her from him. So all you've done is delayed the inevitable and put my brother and Jenna at risk."

"Elijah was the only one who knew about Elena."

"We can only hope but you don't know that for sure and now our two best chances at fighting against him are gone. How are we going to stop one of the first vampires ever created without an original or our side or the only weapon that can kill him?" She knows he doesn't have an answer for it and his lack of response shows it. "Don't know do you? And do you wanna know why you don't?" She doesn't wait for him to answer. "It's because once again you couldn't look past what's right in front of you because of your giant size Elena blinders and see the bigger picture. Sometimes there are more important things the object of your affection. Sometimes saving the person you love, isn't worth the consequences. I finally think I'm starting to see that now."

He starts to respond to what she has says but she doesn't let him, "just go Damon. I need to think." She grabs her things as she continues to get ready for bed and leaves him standing there as she walks into the bathroom slamming the door.

When she comes out, he's gone, and she walks the the dresser where her computer is sitting and does the one thing she hasn't done in a long time, she begins to write.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Review Responses**

 **Anna. B:** I'm glad you are liking the story so far and find Alyssa to be interesting as I wanted her to be a very complex person as many of us are. Her complexity in the end is what drives her to do a lot what she does, mainly family and love. As for her love for Damon, she can see herself in him in a lot of ways but she also recognizes that she isn't what's best for him and in the end neither is he; as they tend to bring out the worse in each other.

When she finally recognizes this, she will be able to slowly move and this will open her up to other possibly relationships which I'm looking forward to exploring. Her relationship with both Klaus and Elijah is going to be the most fascinating. As things progress further and she grows as this new person (vampire) her relationships will get better as well. One friendship I'm looking to establish is her's and Rebekah's as I find them to be a lot similar but a lot more on that later.

 **Elijayde:** Expect for there to be a lot of interactions between Alyssa and Klaus when you begin to see a lot more of that part of her she'd always struggled to keep hidden come out in the next season as she begins to step into who she really is as a vampire.

 **Guest:** That was one of my man problems with Elena (and my OC), how everyone jumps through hoops to protect poor defenseless Elena.

 **HPuni101:** Glad you're enjoying the story.


	15. The House Guest

"She's out of the tomb?" Alyssa mind struggles to process what Stefan had just told her about Katherine being freed from the tomb and how she had no intention of leaving either the town or their home. She look over at Stefan as they walk down the school halls. "How?"

They stop in front of her locker as she turn the dial on her combination. He answers. "The compulsion wore off when Elijah died."

She takes out her books, "great," and slams the locker. "Another thing for us to have to worry about." She turns to Stefan holding her books to her chest and leaning against her locker, "do we know if Uncle John knew about the compulsion wearing off the moment we stuck the dagger into his heart?"

Stefan shrugs unsure but Alyssa had no doubt he did, "what am I saying, of course he did. He's been her spy since the minute he got into town. Do we know what she wants?"

"You know Katherine." He says leaning against the locker next to hers.

What she knew was that she was all smoke and mirrors and you didn't know what her true agenda was until she wanted you to and by then it was too late to stop her. "Unfortunately," she answers. "So how do we deal with the threat of Klaus and Katherine looming?"

"I don't know. Just be careful. She's gotten a lot better at impersonating Elena."

His words struck a chord with her and given her an idea, "that might actually work in our favor, if we can find a way to get Bonnie's powers back." Of course, there was another option. "Unless…." She didn't know why she didn't think of it before. "Do you think you can get Lukas and Jonas to agree to a sit down? I'd ask myself but after the last two times I ask for Bonnie to help I'm not so sure she'd agree to a third."

"What are you thinking?"

The warning bell rung, "i'll explain later." She began to walk backwards towards Ricks class as she had to meet him to discuss something about Jenna. "Just get them to agree to a face to face. I'll do the rest." She turns as she heads inside of Rick's classroom to see him standing there waiting for her and she shuts the door so they wouldn't be overheard as he discusses the latest details of their relationship.

"Now she doesn't trust me."

"It's John." She says recalling the conversation she had with Jenna the night before. "He's planted all these seeds of doubt about Isobel and whether she's dead. I tried to talking to her but I think there's been far too many questions and not enough answers. "

"It makes me wonder how much longer can she stay in the dark."

She knew what he was getting at and turns to him as he walks around the room. "You think we should tell her the truth?"

"I'm saying I can't be with her and not tell her. It's not fair to her, and it's not the kind of relationship I want."

"Not to mention it's becoming more dangerous for her not to know. I just thought that we'd at least hold off until after we've dealt with Klaus. You know, and even then, how do we tell someone what we know? How does someone hear that?"

"Look, I'm sorry to put this on you. But I feel it's your decision to make. Since this doesn't just affect me if we do decided to tell her, we have to tell everything including the part about you being a vampire."

"Not to mention our whole family legacy that she wasn't allowed to know because she wasn't a Gilbert." She wasn't sure how well she was going to be able to handle it if at all or where to start.

"Whatever you decide to do, I'll respect it. I want to be honest with her. But until then, Jenna and I are done."

"I'll discuss it with Elena but I think your right. She has to know." She just wasn't sure when was the right time to tell her. Until then, she had more immediate problems to worry about, like getting Jonas and Luka to agree to helping.

The first step to doing that had been accomplished with Bonnie getting them to agree to meeting them. Though, she could tell they were a little apprehensive to do so when they sat down. She was going to let Bonnie and Stefan do all the talking as previously agreed upon by Stefan as the one condition in which she was allowed to come.

"Thank you for coming." He says as Jonas and Luka eye the suspiciously.

Jonas answers, "I didn't want to but my son made a case to hear you out."

"Bonnie said that you have information about Elijah." Jonas says which causes Stefan to look at Bonnie.

He answers, "Elijah's dead. I'm sorry."

Jonas and Luka look at Bonnie and Jonas gets up, Alyssa stands and places her hand on his shoulder but Stefan is the one to speak. "Hear me out. We can help you."

He looks at Alyssa before doing just that and once he was seated she returns to her seat and continues to let them talk, Bonnie was the next to speak, "we know that Klaus has your daughter. I'm sorry about the way I had to get that information, but it's good that we know. We can all work together to get her back."

Luka seems to be interested by the proposal a all he wants is his sister back, "How?"

Stefan answers instead of Bonnie, "I suspect that you and Elijah had a plan to kill Klaus. Let us help you carry it out. You can trust us. I give you my word. We all do."

Jonas look to Alyssa most suspicious of her. "Elijah gave you his word," he looks back to Stefan, "look what happened to him."

She leans forward staring him in the eyes, "Elijah lays rotten in the floor of a dirty basement with a dagger in his chest. So it seems like you placed your faith in the wrong man. We're giving you an opportunity to correct that mistake so the same doesn't happen to you."

Jonas turns to Stefan nodding towards Alyssa. "Is this how you go about asking for help?" He looks back at Alyssa, "by threatening us?"

"I don't make threats. I make promises and I keep them. I would say ask Elijah but you can't can you. And I can promise you, you don't want to be on the wrong side of me. Now I know part of the plan involves a burial site where a bunch of witches were murdered."

"How do you know about that?"

"Who else? Do you know where it is or not?"

"No."

"You're not lying to me are you Jonas? Cause that would be a big mistake."

Luka came to the aid of his father. "We're not."

"Good. Now I don't see any reason why we all can't be friends. After all," she sat back in her chair studying father and son, "we're all after the same things. I just think it'd be more beneficial if we were friends and not enemies. Don't you?"

"What I think," he starts to stand, "is that we're done here?"

She addresses Luka after Jonas is gone. "I hope you can talk some sense into your father." He walks away and she watches him with a glint in her eyes and a smile smirk on his face.

"Well that was a complete waste." Bonnie says dejectedly as they leave.

"On the contrary," Alyssa turns to her, "I think we got exactly what we needed."

"They didn't agree to help us."

"Not directly, but they will. They just don't know it yet." She got up and and left the grill. She expected Jonas and Luka were on the way home by now trying to find a way to free Elijah. That is, if they got the subtle message, which she believed they had. Now she just had to make sure they found a way to free him. If not, there was always option K.

"What did Papa witch and baby witch have to say?" Stefan pause inside the door to the living room leaning against the door and looks at Katherine.

"Isn't she gone or dead yet?" He answers.

"For the last time," Katherine begins annoyed over the fact that she had to repeat herself. " I'm here to help. Can we skip the secrets, hmm?"

Stefan considers it a moment before he decides to answer, "Elijah had no weapon to kill Klaus but he believed that if a witch could channel enough power...They wouldn't need one."

"Like the power you get from a spot marked with a hundred dead witches." Alyssa says walking into the room stopping in front of the table with the rest of the Gilbert Journals on it. "We just need to find it." She gestures towards the Journals. "I'm guessing these are suppose to help."

"John knew Emily was a witch," Damon says coming over to her. "I'm hoping he mentioned something about where the burial site."

She took a journal. "Guess we better get to reading then."

She settles on a couch to read both Damon and Katherine taking Journals as well. She's half way through it when she feels a chill the air and looks up but the only thing she sees is Katherine and Damon. So she's goes back to reading but then feels the same weird chill seconds later and sits down the journal.

Damon watches her but doesn't move otherwise and she continues on until she's until she's downstairs in the basement where the cellars were and where Elijah's body was kept.

"What are you doing here?"

She turns to Katherine, "I thought I heard something."

Katherine takes a minute to listen but doesn't hear anything. "I don't hear anything."

Shes looks back into the cage then turns away from him. "I could have sworn." She walks away to head back upstairs.

Katherine stays back checking the cellar. She sees the dagger being pulled out and rushes into take hold of it until she feels the lack of resistance and releases it too. She then looks around the room. She sees a wooden chair being broken but doesn't see anyone.

Alyssa hears the sound of the chair being broken and runs back into the cellar to see that Katherine's been stabbed.

She sees the dagger beginning to be pulled out again and she grabs a hold of it calling for Damon.

He comes rushing in and surveys the scene in front of him. Alyssa begins to explain that it's some crazy ass psychic witch attach. "Do something."

He leaves and comes back with a flamethrower and point it in the area of the dagger. She watches but doesn't see anyone or anything and let's go of the dagger standing up.

Katherine removes the dagger. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." She leaves the cellar and goes upstairs.

"What the hell happened?" Stefan says when he sees the blood on Katherine shirt after she comes up.

"I'll let them explain." She says tossing on her jacket and heading for the door.

Alyssa arrives at the Martin's residence with Stefan who followed her on the insistence of Damon and Alyssa kicks open the door and sees Lukas burned body on the ground. Jonas comes from somewhere inside and holds out his hand.

Angrily he says, "you killed him." His magic sends them both to the floor holding their heads in pain. "He's dead and I have no one. And now you're about to find out exactly what that feels like." Jonas leaves out the door stepping over him as he leaves. The pain subsides and Stefan sees Elena picture on the floor.

"Elena's at the grill." Stefan tells Alyssa after getting off the phone with Elena. His words and his picture of Elena meant that he was going after her.

"I'll call Damon." She says taking out her phone as Stefan heads over to the grill. Alyssa's right behind him. When they get to the grill, the lights are out. She sees Jenna and turns to Stefan, "get Elena out of here," and then walks towards Rick. He asks her what's going on. She answers him as quickly as possible, "Luka's dead and Jonas is after Elena. You need to get Jenna out of here. Now." She walks away from Rick and over to Jonas. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes," he sets another bartop on fire, "I do."

She looks back at Elena and Stefan. She needed to find away to get her out of there and the only way to do that was by distracting him. "What about your daughter?"

"Elijah is the only person that can help me." He looks over to Elena, "the only way I can do that if is I have her."

She looks back at Elena again, her faces changes when she looks to Jonas. "Sorry to have to be the one to disappoint," she jumps on him about to take a bite of out his neck when he uses his powers once again to provokes a headache and she falls down to the ground holding her head.

Matt sees her and rushes over to help. Pushing Jonas to the wall he yells, "Get away from her!"

"Matt, no!" She yells knowing how dangerous Jonas was and what he was capable of in this moment. She didn't want him getting hurt. She tried to fight through the pain but wasn't able to pick herself up off the floor, even with all her strength. She watches as Jonas breaks a bottle an stabs Matt in the neck with it. Matt falls to the floor. Caroline rushes over to help as Jonas leaves but she did nothing but kneel beside him and she knew that she was struggling to control herself.

She rushes over to them after Jonas is gone and she's able to get off the floor. "Caroline," she calls out to her to get her under control. She closes her eyes taking a few deep breaths and Alyssa kneeled down beside them biting her wrist as she did. She held it to Matt's mouth and when he wouldn't drink she clasped his jaw wrenching it up and force feeding it to him. She pulls away when she could see that the cut was healing and turned to Caroline. "Think you'll be okay to get him home."

She nods. Alyssa gets up and leaves returning to her home where Damon and Elena. "Everybody okay?" She asks Elena.

She nods wrapping her arms around herself, "yeah."

"And Jonas?" She looks to Damon who gave her a look that she knew he meant that he was taking care of. "So he bought Katherine's act too?"

"How did you guys convince her to do this?" Elena asks wondering what they had to bribe her with to help save her life.

Alyssa answers, "We didn't. It was her idea."

"Wow." Elena couldn't believe it, "That's...not good.

"No," Alyssa agrees, "it's not."

Stefan and Katherine comes down the stairs.

Stefan says, "Everything's taken care of."

Katherine pulls off Elena's necklace. "I'm guessing you're going to want this back. But your pretty little outfit is going to need a good dry clean."

She snatches her necklace from Katherine's hand and turns to Stefan. "You're going to have to get her out of here before Jenna gets home."

"Is that all you have to say to me?"

"This doesn't change the way I feel about you."

"I don't much like you, either, if we're going to be open and frankly, I'd be happy to see you dead but if we're going to try to take on Klaus, we kinda need you to be alive. So I'm not a threat to you, Elena. If any of you are going to believe anything, believe that."

She walks away deciding leaving out the back door. Alyssa turns to look at Damon but doesn't say a word just to him. She just turns and walks upstairs and he watches her go. She pulls out her cell phone as soon as she's in the room and calls Caroline to check on Matt.

"He hasn't woken up yet." She tells him. "What do I tell him?"

"Nothing. Matt can not know about any of this. Too many people are already involved and it's just gotten too complicated."

She took a pause before asking, "how's Elena?"

"Safe, for now. Call me when Matt wakes up." She hangs up tossing her phone on the bed. She takes off her jacket getting ready for bed.

She's out of the shower and dressed when she hears someone run up the stairs. She steps out into the hall just in time to see Jenna run into her room locking herself in.

She approaches Elena as she comes up. "What's going on?"

Elena turns to her with an expression of worry crossing her arms, "Isobel, back." Elena says as she passes by her and walks into her room leaving Alyssa standing in the hall watching Jenna's close bedroom door.


	16. Know thy Enemy

"Jenna," Alyssa calls out as she rasp on her bedroom door with her knuckles, "please to talk to me." She had locked herself in her room the night before and refused to talk to them or come out of her room. "I know you're upset but if you just talk to us. Let us expl.." she hears the door unlock and she steps back as Jenna steps out with a suitcase.

"I'm way passed upset." She says and walks past her and down the stairs before Alyssa could ask her about her packed suitcase. She follows her down the stairs were. Elena is with. Jenna takes one look at Ric and says, "I don't want you here, Ric. You need to go."

He doesn't listen and instead tries to talk to her, "Okay, listen. I can't begin to imagine what you must be feeling right now."

She sits down her bag. "Rage and betrayal would pretty much cover it." She puts on her jacket and picks up her bag again.

Elena sees the bag and asks, "Where are you going?"

Jenna answers, "I'm going to stay on campus. I have a thesis to write, and I don't want to be in this house."

Alaric tries one last time to get her to talk to them, "Jenna, please just stop. Let us explain to you exactly what is going on."

Jenna ignores his plea and turns to Elena with her mind already made up, "I need you to go to the Lockwood's today and accept the Historical Society's check for your mom's foundation."

Elena agrees and once again tries to get her to listen but it doesn't work.

"I don't have it in me to hear any more lies from you." She says and leaves closing the door behind her.

John comes out of the kitchen. "Let her go." He says, "It's better that she's not here, what with everything that's going on but maybe had you been a little more honest with her from the beginning, this…"

Alaric punches him in the face and turns to the girls apologizing and then leaves.

Alyssa smiles at him wishing that he had done more damage before he left but she had to settle for being a witness to it.

"You know this is your fault, right?" Elena says.

"Right." John drawls out.

Elena goes upstairs. Alyssa turns to John preparing to say how he deserved much more than what he got when her cell phone rings. She takes it out of her pocket and answers it.

"Caroline, this really isn't a good time." She steps away from John after Caroline mentioned how Matt woke up after the attack and freaked out and how she tried to calm him down but as soon as her mom walked in he took off.

"I can't find him anywhere." She says in a panic. "He's not at home. He's not answering his phone.

Alyssa leaves the house slamming the door behind her. "Caroline, you had one job. How could you just let him go?"

"My mom walked in. He took off. I didn't know what to do."

"Did your mom hear anything?"

"No. She just thinks we're fighting but he knows about me, and he's freaking out about Vicki."

"Caroline," she walks down the stairs to get into her car. "We have to find him. We have to calm him down. Compel him if you have to. Is he still on the vervain?"

"I slip it into his soda when he's at work, but I didn't get to last night, so it's out of his system. He has a catering shift at the Lockwood's today. I'm gonna try there."

She slips into the car, "I'm on my way." She hangs up and starts the engine. She pushes a button on the steering wheel. "Call Matt." The line rung a few times before his answering machine came on.

"You've reached Matt. Leave a message."

She doesn't leave a message and instead drives off. Isobel appears in front of the car and she slams on the breaks.

"You have really got some nerve." She says getting out of the car and approaching Isobel.

"I came to help."

"Wow, you and John have gotten your lies rehearsed."

"I know you're upset with me."

"Upset? You kidnapped my brother and almost killed my friends. You're lucky I don't kill you."

John steps out onto the porch. "You might want to hear what she has to say first. It could save Elena's life."

Alyssa didn't know whether or not to believe her, but she was willing to hear out. Especially if it mean they were safe from Klaus.

"Since I was last here," She, Stefan, John, Elena, and Isobel are in the kitchen listening to Isobel explain her,. "I've been doing everything possible to find Klaus. We knew our best chance was to find him before he could find you."

"Best chance at what?" She asks.

John answers for her, "keeping Elena alive."

But Elena didn't want ot her for him. "You don't get to talk, okay, not after everything you've done."

Stefan was more worried about Klaus than John and asks, "were you able to find Klaus?

"No." She answers, "Nobody knows where he is but there are these rumors that are flying around. That a doppelgänger exists."

John continues, "Which means any vampire that wants to get in favor with Klaus will be lining up to capture you."

Elena wasn't buying any of it. She looks at Isobel. "The last time that you were here, you made it clear that you didn't give a damn about me. Now all of a sudden I'm supposed to believe that you want to help?"

John answers for her, "Isobel's been helping all along. Klaus has been obsessed with finding Katherine for centuries. All it would take was any one of those 1864 tomb vampires to spread the word around that Katherine was still alive and it would bring him straight here to Mystic Falls, where you were bound to be discovered, so we killed them.

"And almost killed Stefan and Damon in the process." Alyssa reminds them.

Isobel gets up and moves towards Elena. "I have a safe house that I can take you to. The deed is in your name. No vampires can get in without your permission, not even me. Let me help you."

"You wanna help? Then get the hell out of my house." She says but she's the one to leave. Alyssa gets up and follows her.

"Are you okay?"

She leans against the wall outside of the living room, "no."

Her phone goes off in her pocket and she takes it out. It's a text from Damon and she remembers that she was suppose to meet him at the Martin's residence. "I promise Damon I would help him and Bonnie with something." She says putting her phone back into her pocket. "It'll be okay Elena," she reassures her, "we'll get through this..together." She kisses her forehead which surprises the both of them and leaves.

Damon and Bonnie are already at the Martin residence with Jeremy when she arrives. She looks down to see Luka's body still on the floor where they had left it the night before.

"If you can enter," she says to Damon as she walks in, she looks down at Luka "guess that means everyone's dead." She look up at Damon again, "what are we looking for?"

"According to Luka's dad," Bonnie begins, "one of these contains a spell that'll let me harness the energy that's left behind when a witch dies violently."

Alyssa begins to look through one of the books. "I didn't know you and father which were so close."

"We weren't," she answers, "but when he gave me my powers back, he gave me a message. If I can find the spot in town, where the old Salem witches were burned, I can harness their energy to use when I need it."

"Great." Alyssa drawls out looking at Bonnie, "I'll have to put that on our list of things to do today." She sits the book down. "It's a good thing we already know where the spot is or this would be really a waste of time."

That was news to Bonnie. "You know where the witches were burned?"

Damon answers her, "Did I forget to mention that?"

Jeremy is reading one of the grimoires when he says, "Are we gonna have to read through every one of these books till we find the right spell?"

"Not exactly." She answers, she looks at the shelf, closes her eyes and raises her hands. All of the books fall and one of them opens right in front of her. She takes it. "It's this one."

"Great." Damon was eager to leave the place, it was starting to smell. "Grab the rest. Let's go."

Alyssa nodded to Luka, "what about him?"

"We'll come back for him." They couldn't exactly bury the body in broad daylight.

"You know, it's alarming how many nights ends with us burying a body." She says as they leave the apartment and meet up with Stefan and Elena at the Salvatore boarding house. Elena and Stefan are in the library when they show up.

* * *

"I already gave him the short version." Alyssa says as she walks in. She flops down on the couch, "discuss."

Elena waits no time getting into the root of what they learned from Isobel. "Do you really think that Isobel's telling the truth that word's gotten out about the doppelgänger?"

"I think we'd be stupid to trust a word that she says," answer's Alyssa "but it'd be even stupider to ignore the warning."

Damon suggests that Elena stays with them so they could keep a better eye on her.

Stefan says, "What, in the house that any vampire can enter? No. Her house is safer.

Damon comes up with an alternative plan, "Well, then we'll stay there."

Stefan shrugs not seeing a problem with it.

Elena however feels differently and expresses it. "So is that the plan? Neither of you will let me out of your sight again?"

Damon reply. "Let me know when you come up with a better one."

"That should go over real nicely with Jenna." Alyssa says standing up. "Though after last night I doubt she's going to be in the mode to see either one of us." She looks at her phone. She's getting a call from Caroline.

"If that's how we're playing this." Elena says addressing Damon's comment, "Then one of you 2 bodyguards is gonna have to come with me to the Lockwood luncheon.

Stefan raises his hand. "That'd be me."

"Not me. I have witch stuff to attend to with Bonnie." He looks at Alyssa. "You in?"

She puts her phone back in her pocket not answering, "I got my own things to do but you guys got this right." She needed to help Caroline find Matt and soon.

Elena turns to Damon. "Does that mean that you're taking her to the..."

Damon shushes her putting his finger to his mouth as Katherine walks in.

"Don't get quiet on my account. If you have a plan to combat the impending vampire doom, please do tell." She stops behind the couch Elena was sitting on

No one answers her and Damon looks at Stefan.

"Seriously, what is the plan to get us out of this mess, hmm? I delivered you a moonstone, a werewolf, and the dagger to lure and kill Klaus, and right now all you have is a moonstone. Or so you tell me."

Damon assures her that they have it.

Katherine asks, "Where is it?"

He again reassures her that, "It's in a very safe place."

That wasn't enough for Katherine. "I've been honest with you. Time to return the favor."

Damon reply, "Let me be honest with you. Don't mistake the fact that we haven't set you on fire in your sleep for trust."

Elena looks at her and smiles.

Katherine huffs, "Fine. Be that way." She then leaves.

Alyssa takes her phone out of her pocket this time answering Caroline she says, "sorry I got caught up with something." She leaves the room. Damon follows her. "I'm on my way." She hangs up.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"Like I said," she put her phone back in her pocket, "I have things to do."

"What could be more important than saving your sister's life?"

"She has you and Stefan. You've already proven you're more than willing to risk your life and anyone else's to keep her safe. And seeing as how we don't know where Klaus is or what he looks like or even a way to stop him, there's really not much I can do. So I'm going to take what little time we do have before he inevitably come to claim his doppleganger to live what short life I have left that doesn't involve doppelgangers, witches, or sacrifices and I'm going to go do that alone."

She leaves the Salvatore house and drives over to the Lockwoods. Sheriff Forbes is speaking with Carol and she interrupts the conversation to ask whether or not she seen Matt.

Carol answer's, "No, I haven't, honey. Sorry. But if you see him, could you ask if he's heard from Tyler?"

"Yeah, of course. You haven't heard anything?"

"No. The note he left said he needed time to figure some things out, but I wish I knew where he was."

"I'm sure he'll get in touch with you soon. He's probably just figuring some things things out." She looks up and sees Caroline as she enters and excuses herself. "Didn't think I'd beat you here." She says pulling her off to the side.

"Any luck finding Matt?"

"None. What if he tells somebody? What if he tells everybody?"

"Let just hope we find him before he does."

Caroline sighs, "You know, this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. You know, I was supposed to tell him at the right moment in the right way, and he was supposed to be okay with it because he loves me."

"He loves you Caroline and he's my best friend. He'll come around, in his own time. I have to believe that. But we got to find him first before he goes around shouting vampire...vampire...Vicki…" She looks around for sheriff Forbes. "Where's your mom?"

"You think he'd tell my mom about us?" She asks in a panic.

Alyssa walks off to find sheriff Forbes before that could happen. "I think he's going to have questions about Vicki, how she died, and the fact that right before she died she mentioned a vampire."

"He's going to tell my mom." She says in a panic.

"We just have to get to him before he does."

"What if he doesn't show?"

She stops when she has the sheriff in her house. "He will. If not here and now then somewhere more private. Until he does," she turns to Caroline, "you should try to find him."

"Okay. What are you going to do?"

"Wait here. Call me if you find him?"

"Yeah." She nods and leaves.

Alyssa hung back to keep on eye on the sheriff. The front door opens and Elena walks in with Stefan. They spot her leaning against the wall in the next room and walk towards her but only Stefan makes it as Elena is called away by Carol.

Stefan stops beside her. "So this is where you come when you need alone time?"

"Beats searching a dusty old house where hundreds of witches were flayed alive."

"Or maybe it's because you don't want to spend time with Damon."

She looks at him over her shoulder at him and then back to the sheriff. "My relationship with Damon is….complicated. Way more than I like. So I'm a distancing myself."

"You think that's a good idea."

She turn to him fully. "I know that you think that me and Damon being... whatever we are, means that I have some sort of influence over him and even if that is true, it's not good for me. For more than one reason." She turns back around to face Elena whose accepting the check on her mother's behalf. It gets interrupted by a loud thud. Stefan and Alyssa share a look and follow the sound in the next room to see John Gilbert. He's lying unconscious on the floor.

"Uncle John!" Alyssa rushes towards him playing the part of the concern niece and crouches down next to him while everyone else files in. Carol included who addresses the crowd.

"Please, let the sheriff do her job." She says as the sheriff makes her way through the crowd. She bends down next to Alyssa.

"'Is he going to be okay?"

"Yeah, I got it. I got it." She looks at John and turns to the crowd. "You know what? Let's all back off. He just needs some air. Everything's fine."

Stefan grabs Alyssa and she lets him pull her up off the floor and they take a step back.

"Did you see the bite mark on his neck?" She asks when they were away from hears.

"Yeah." He looks around and so does Alyssa but for a different reason.

She looks back at Stefan. "Where's Elena?"

He turns around and sees her standing behind them.

"I'm right here."

"You need to get her out of here." She tells Stefan. "I'll call Damon." She steps away and takes out her phone. After explaining the situation to him, she walks back over to Mrs. Lockwood and Sheriff Forbes putting on her best concerned look, "is he going to be okay?" She asks looking at his body as Carol ushers the last person out.

"It was just a bad fall." Carol says. "We've called the paramedics.

"But I saw blood." She says shaken and confused.

Damon enters and sees John laying on the ground as the last person leave. "How is he?"

The sheriff cut her eyes over to Alyssa and Damon walks over to her. "Hey," he grabs her shoulder and she forces her eyes off his body. "He's going to be okay. Why don't you go check on Elena?"

She nods, and after one finale look at John she leaves the house but through the back way where she knew Damon would bring him. Sure enough, he came out carrying John over his shoulder.

"Let me guess," she says leaning against his car. "He's wearing his ring."

Damon opens tries to open the trunk of the car but fails to and looks at Alyssa, "a little help."

She rolls her eyes and leans away from the car and opens the trunk. Damon puts him in there and she looks down at him. "Too bad he isn't really dead."

Damon slams the trunk shut and turns to her. "Don't worry, Elena's safe. Stefan got her out of her and soon as we saw the bite mark. Guess we were right not to trust mommy dearest. Too bad John didn't feel the same way."

"Let's just get him out of here before he wakes up."

"I brought myself. Meet you back at your place." She walks away from his car and walks around the side of the house and to her car. She watches as Damon car pulls out of the back and gets in her car following.

* * *

She opens and closes his truck and then opens the front door for him and he was in carrying John's body over his shoulder. He dumps him on the floor. He has blood on his hands and on his shirt. He goes in the bathroom and washes his hands. He takes off his shirt. His phone rings. He answers. It's Stefan.

"Stefan?" Alyssa stands in his bathroom door and watches him. How'd I beat you and Elena home? What?"

Alyssa listens in as he explains that Katherine posed as Elena and now both of them were missing.

Damon then rummages through the soap bowl and realizes the moonstone's not there. He throws the bowl on the ground. "The moonstone's gone too."

Alyssa phones vibrates in her pocket and she leans up from against the wall and looks at it. It's a text from Caroline saying that she found Matt. She turns while texting telling her she was on her way.

Damon comes out of the bathroom to ask where she was headed. She tells him she had her own saving to do and leaves.

"I had to tell him." Caroline says when she met Alyssa outside.

"What exactly did you tell him?"

She repeats, in shorter detail what she had confided in him. She walks in after she was finish to see Matt sitting on the couch.

"Matt," she took a step towards him and he shot up off the couch and took a step back. "I know you heard a lot." She slowly walks towards him like she was approaching a baby animal. "And you need time to process it but it's still me. I'm still the same person I've always been. Knowing what you do, it doesn't change anything."

"I remember last night. How you made me drink your blood."

"If I didn't you would have died. I did it to save you."

"Normal people blood can't do that."

His words made her stop. "I'm not normal. But I'm still me."

"No you're not. You can't be and be whatever you are. Because the Alyssa I know would never lie to me about who she really was. Or what happened to my sister. You knew this whole time about Vicki and you let me believe that it was my fault."

"It was to protect you. You have to believe that. I didn't want what happened to us to happen to you. Knowing what we do, who we are, puts you in a lot of danger."

"And alone."

She tries to approach him again, "you're not," he backs away and she stops, "alone.

"My mom doesn't care, my sister's dead, and all of my friends are liars, and you're a…" he couldn't even bring himself to say the word.

"I didn't want this Matt. We," she gestured to Carlone, "we never wanted this. But here were are."

"And it's too much. All of this is just too much. I don't want to know this."

"I want to help. Tell me what I can do to help."

"You can make me forget. Caroline did it before. I don't wanna look at you and see what I'm seeing right now."

"Okay."

* * *

"I never thought I would feel bad about her being dead…."

"I seriously hope you're talking about Katherine," she says pouring herself a drink.

"Isobel." Stefan says. "Klaus was compelling her this whole time. He compelled her to kill herself once he got Katherine and the moonstone."

"Well then I seriously hope he makes the bitch suffer." She took a long sip of her drink before pouring another.

"What I can't figure out is why they let me go?"

"Well, anything John told Isobel, we have to assume that Klaus knows, right? So he knows that you're not gonna turn yourself into a vampire. He knows that you have us keeping you safe."

Elena finishes Stefan thought with, "He knows I'm not gonna run."

"Which is why we need to take some precautions," Damon says walking in, "'cause we got played, all of us. He puts some papers in her lap.

Elena asks, "What's this?"

Stefan answers, "It's the deed to our house. It's in Zach's name. As soon as you sign it, it'll be in your name."

Alyssa raises her brow, "You're giving her your house?"

Stefan's reply, "Isobel had the right idea with the safe house. You'll just stay here till it's all over. That way, you can control who gets invited and who doesn't."

Damon jokes, "although I'll be super pissed if you lock me out."

Elena gave him a look which he smiles to and John suddenly gasps for air and sits up. Damon rushes over to him and lifts him up by his collar.

John hurriedly pleads his case. "I swear I had no idea what she was gonna do. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Elena tells Damon to let him go. "He and I need to talk." He does what she says and step back and they walk into a different room.

"A bit of good news." Damon pour himself and Stefan a drink. "Bonnie said the spell worked. She's locked and loaded."

"At least something went right today." Stefan took the drink Damon gave him. "Katherine has no idea that Bonnie got her powers back.

"Uh-uh."

"And Isobel had no idea what you and Jeremy took Bonnie to do today."

"Uh-uh."

"We're the only ones who know."

"That literally makes Bonnie our secret weapon."

Damon and Stefan raise their glasses of scotch and clink them together before drinking.

Alyssa silently sips on her drink. Both Stefan and Damon notice how silent she was being and Stefan asks, "you okay?'

"Yeah. I'm good. It's just been a long day."

Stefan didn't believe it and tells her, "you can talk to us."

She thinks about it for a moment before she decides to come clean. "Matt knows about us. Or rather he knew. Caroline told him after what happened at the grill with Jonas. She sort of had to and he freaked out and I was expecting that. Knowing what's really out there can be a shock. But I never expected him to look at me the way that he did, like I was some kind of monster."

She got up feeling sad just thinking about it. She turns to the fire place. "Besides Vicki, he was the only person who looked at me and saw me. Not some delinquent that everybody thought I was." She turns and face the boys. "Having him look at me the way he did just made me realize that I'm not that person anymore. I mean how can I be after everything that's happened, everything that is happening. After my parents died, I promised myself that I was going to change. That I was going to be a better person for them, which is sort of ironic considering what I am. But no matter what I knew I'd always have Matt and now I don't even have that."

"You're not alone." Stefan assures her and she knew he meant that. What they had been through this last year had bonded them in a strange way and she would was at least grateful for that.

"I know. And one day, maybe I'll even start to feel like I'm not." She drunk the rest of her drink and sat it down. She walks out of the library. She runs into Elena who's just finishing her talk with John. She glances between them, "everything okay?"

"Yeah," Elena looks at John and it would seem as if they reached an understanding. "Are you headed home?"

"Yeah. Need a ride?"

"I'm just going to say bye to Stefan."

"I'll be in the car."

Elena turns and walks away. She starts to head out when John calls her and gives her a blanketed apology.

"Elena might've forgiven you," she says in reply, "but it's going to take a lot more than you words to make up for everything you've done. You want forgiveness than you have to earn it." She turns and walks out of the house.

* * *

"You got hit with a lot today and you need time. I just wish you would talk to us and let us explain." Elena walks into to her room as she leaves a voicemail for Jenna. "Just call me okay."

"Still no word from Jenna?"

Alyssa sighs and hangs up the phone. "No. Wonder how she feel about you being a homeowner. I still can't believe they're giving you their house."

"To keep me safe from Klaus."

"Something tells me we're going to need more than a safe house to do that. Dude seems pretty determined to see you dead. I don't think he's going to let a little thing like him not being to enter a house stop him from getting what he wants."

She sighs, "that's what I'm worried about." She walks into the room.

"If you're worried about Jenna, I got that covered and so does Rick. And with Bonnie's super charged witchy powers there's no way Klaus is getting anywhere near Jeremy. They're safe. The only thing we need to be focusing on is you and making sure none of Klaus's spies get anywhere near you."

"We'd have to find them first."

"That's a problem for tomorrow."

"Speaking of problems," she came into the room and sat on the bed. "You and Damon, what's going on?"

"Nothing."

She gave her a look that said she clearly didn't believe her.

"Fine, it's not nothing but it's not something that I want to talk about, especially not with you. Considering you have probably have the closest thing to have the perfect boyfriend anyone can have. If you get past the whole him being dead thing." She sits down beside her tucking her feet under her. "I just want what you have. I want to feel like someone actually gives a damn whether I lived or died. I know mom and dad did. Jeremy and Jenna does. You do," she gestures to herself, "obviously, but it's not what you have with Stefan and Damon. Even Caroline and Bonnie, they'd die before they'd let anything happen to you. All I have is you three. And if anything were to happen to either of you, I'm afraid of what would happen to me. Who I would become. I've flirted with the point of no return so many times with Lexie, Mason, and now Luka,and Jonas. There's something dark inside of me, Elena. I can feel it. It's always been their silent. But I felt it grow when Vicki died. It's only a matter of time before it takes over. I'm afraid of what's going to happen to me when it does."


	17. The Last Dance

"Is he here?"

Stefan nods towards the house as he and Damon waits outside, "he's in there."

Elena nods and walks inside of the house.

Alyssa starts to walk in after her but Damon grabs her and stops her, "I wouldn't do that."

She looks at him curiously but stays where she is. Damon lets her and She looks after each Salvatore individually, "so we're really doing this. We're really going after Klaus." The look they gave her confirmed it. "Do we really think Bonnie can take on Klaus?"

Stefan answers, "She said she could channel enough witch's power to kill him. Elijah thought that would work and he was an Original, so…"

"All we have to do his find him," as an afterthought she says, "which is going to be near to impossible since the one person who knows what Klaus actually looks like aside from Elijah is probably also dead."

"Not like she didn't have it coming." Comments Damon.

"Could she do one of those witch tracking spells? Bonnie? You know, to find Klaus." Alyssa asks.

Stefan answers with a defeated, "Nope. Not without something that belongs to Klaus. Believe me, I already asked."

"Then we're back to square one." A place Alyssa really hated being.

Elena opens the door. The lawyer leaves. "Thank you, Mr. Henry."

Stefan and Damon walk to the threshold but an invisible force keeps them out."I'm sorry. "I completely forgot." She looks at Stefan. "Stefan," and then her sister, "Alyssa, would the two of you like to come inside my house?"

Stefan looks at Alyssa before he responds, "We would would love to. Thank you." They walk in and all three of them turn to look at Damon.

His response to her hesitancy to let him in, "What are we, twelve?"

"One of us is." She replies. "If I let you in, do you promise to obey the owner of this house?"

"No."

"Seriously, Damon. My way. You promised. I call the shots. No lies, no secret agendas. Remember?"

"Yes, Elena. Sure."

"Then please, come in."

He enters and looks at Stefan. Elena closes the door and goes back into the library where she left her jacket.

"Shut up." Damon replies to the smug look Stefan is giving him.

"Ready?" Alyssa asks when she walks back in and she says that she is fueling Stefan to ask ask her where she was going.

Elena simply answers, "To school."

Stefan replies with a not so intelligent, "Huh?"

Damon who's able to form an actually sentence says, "No, no, no," as Elena puts on her jacket. "We didn't create a safe house for you to leave it."

Stefan recovers from his lack of thoughts and words and agrees with Damon, "Yeah, guys, Klaus is out there. We know that."

"Right. But where? No one knows. Look, I really appreciate what you guys are doing. And I'll be able to sleep at night knowing that I'll be safe here, but I'm not going to be a prisoner." Elena looks at Damon as a reminder of what he promised just seconds ago.

He tsk and says, "Your way, Elena."

Alyssa tries to assuage their worries by saying, "Don't worry, Bonnie's is meeting us at school and has promised that she is ready for when he shows his face. And while she's dealing with him I'll will get her out of there and bring her back her to the fanciest prison on the planet."

"See I'll be perfectly safe. Come on."

They leave. Stefan looks at Damon and calls, "Wait, I'm, coming." He leaves with them.

"You guys go ahead." Alyssa says when she Matt getting out of his car. She walks over to him hesitantly not sure how he was going to react when he saw her. Even though she compelled him to forget everything Caroline told him, she still couldn't help but remember the look on his face when he found out what she was. She says a tentative, "hey," as he closes his door.

"You're alive." He says with a small smile.

She chuckles humorlessly and looks down. "I am." They start walking towards the school. "And a really poor excuse for a friend. I promise I'm going to change that. Starting right now." She grabs a hold of his arm. "I want to hear everything that I've miss. Don't leave anything out."

"Caroline and I are back together."

"I heard. Not sure how I feel about the two of you, yet." He gives her an incredulous look. "I know I've had some time but a lot has changed since then."

"You mean with you or Caroline?"

She doesn't answer the question. "I'm just telling you to be careful that's all."

"I can say the same for you." They stop at his locker and she let him go giving him a questioning look. "First Damon, then Tyler. Guess what we know what you're type is."

"Damon… no comment. Tyler, needed my help and as we both know I have need to fix broken things. Since I can't seem to be able to fix myself."

He shuts his locker and turn to him. "You are not broken."

"Really? Care to explain any of my relationship. Aside from you, I haven't had a single functioning one, in...ever. My relationship with my family has been rocky. Vicki, we were basically co-dependent, Tyler, Damon, Tyler again." They walk away from his locker. "I haven't had one healthy relationship outside of us and I'm seriously failing at that." She opens her locker and he tries to ease her guilt.

"Yeah...you kinda are."

She shuts her locker and gives him a look, "just for that, I'm not going to let you take me to the dance."

"Good because Caroline and I are going together. She wants me to dress up like JFK."

She smiles at him while she walks backwards into Ric's class. "Right because just old plan Matt Donovan doesn't do it for her."

He lightly pushes her as they make their way to their desk and she laughs sitting her book down on the desk and Ric walks into class.

He greets, "Hello, class. What are we learning today?"

A classmate name Dana answers, "With the decade dance tonight, we've been covering the sixties all week.

"Right. The sixties." He sees Elena. He looks at her for a while and turns to the board. Alyssa notices the way that he looks at Elena and turns to Matt wondering if he saw the same thing she did but he just shrugs. She turns back to face Ric who writes on the board. "The, uh, ahem... The sixties. I wish there was something good I could say about the sixties, but...Actually, they kind of sucked. Except for the Beatles, of course. They made it bearable. Uh, what else was there? The Cuban missile thing, the...we walked on the moon. There was Watergate."

Elena interrupts him to correct him, "Watergate was the seventies, Ric. I-I mean, Mr. Saltzman."

"Right. It all kind of mushes together up here, the sixties, seventies. Thank you, Elena."

She smiles and opens up her book as Ric continues with his lesson. Alyssa couldn't help but get this weird feeling from him and goes to speak with him after class.

"Ric," she calls out to him when he doesn't know her standing there and everyone else is gone. He turns to her looking a little lost.

"Yeah?"

"I was just wondering if you talked to Jenna. She's not answering mine or Elena calls."

"Jenna…right...sorry...she isn't talking to me either."

She sighs disappointed. "I was hoping that Isobel showing up out of the blue and her finding out that we knew she was a lie all it would take was giving her some time."

"Finding out something like that isn't easier to hear. Especially knowing that everyone you care about was lying to you."

"We had to. It was the only way to keep her safe."

"From Klaus?"

"Klaus, Katherine, and all the half dozen psycho vamps that's passed through here the last year. We faced and stopped everyone or thing that has threaten us so far. Klaus won't be any different. I won't let anything happen to anyone else that I care about, especially Jenna or Jeremy."

"You're willing to risk your lives for theirs."

"You have no idea the lengths I'm willing to go to protect the people I love. Even if it cost me my life." She turns to leave saying loud enough for him to hear, "I won't be dying alone, I'm taking Klaus with me."

"There's something wrong with Ric." Alyssa says as she watches him from around the corner. "He's acting weird."

"It's Ric." Damon response, "How can you tell?"

"I'm serious Damon."

"I know. I can hear it you're voice."

She backs away pressing her back to the wall as he passes. She picks around the corner as he walks away and when he's far enough she comes from behind the wall and finds him. "I can't explain it, but I know something's going on with him, and I'm going to figure out what it is." She hangs up and tries keeps trailing him. She stops when he does looking at a pinup on the board. She looks over at him as he speaks to another teacher before he starts walking again. She waits until he turns the corner before she continues to follow him but it's stopped when Stefan steps in front of her.

"We have a problem."

"So what's the plan?" Alyssa asks looking at the group that consist of Damon, Stefan, Elena, and Bonnie as they all stand in the Salvatore living room, "We just got to the dance and find him?" She had been informed before they gathering at the Salvatore's place that Klaus compelled someone to deliver a message to Elena that basically told her that he was going to be at the dance.

"How? We don't even know what he looks like." Stefan reminds as Ric walks in.

"Sorry I'm late." He apologizes. Alyssa answers Stefan.

"Something tells me he's not going to be sixteen and pimply." She responds, "even if he is we have Bonnie."

"We're not even sure she has the juice to kill him." Damon says unwilling to risk their one weapon on a maybe. "Even if she could, he could be anywhere at any time. He compelled somebody at school."

"Well if anybody else has another idea. Now would be the time to speak up because short of Elena staying in here the rest of her life we have no other choice."

"Okay," Elena says, "so we find him and then what, hmm? What's our plan of attack?"

Bonnie answers, "Me. I'm the plan. He has no idea how much power I can channel. If you can find him, I can kill him."

Ric says, "That's not going to be that easy. I mean, he is the biggest, baddest vampire around."

Damon agrees, "Alaric has a point. I mean, what if he…" He rushes at Bonnie but she throws him on the other side of the room with her powers, without touching him. "It doesn't matter if he's an Original. I can take down anyone who comes at me. I can kill him, Elena. I know I can."

"Elena's life isn't the only one the line." Alyssa tells her. "So you better be right." She turns and leaves to get ready for the dance. She receives a text from Damon letting her know that they're on the way to the dance when she's done. She check herself in the mirror grabbing a jacket she leaves.

Everyone's already waiting in the gym when she gets there. Dana goes onto the stage and speaks into the microphone.

"Thanks for being here, everybody. We have a special shout-out tonight. This is for Elena. From Klaus."

A song starts playing. Elena seems stunned. Alaric/Klaus looks happy."

Damon says, "that was a lame, cheap shot. He's just trying to bait us."

Elena looks around and says, "I know everyone here."

Stefan thinks. "Maybe he's not here. Just wants us to believe that he is."

Either way Damon knew he wasn't going to show himself if they were all closely guarding Elena. "It's a party, people. Blend. Let him come to us."

Bonnie thought, "Good idea. She takes Jeremy's arm.

Jeremy starts to protes. "No, no, I really don't feel like dancing."

"Too bad."

They go on the dance floor. Damon sees Alaric/Klaus. "There's Ric. I'll be back." He walks over to Ric.

Alyssa sees a guy from across the room she recognizes from math class who smiles at her and decides he was the best way to blend in, "Don't worry, I'll entertain myself." She walks towards him grabbing his hand, she takes pulls him out on the dance for the next song while still keeping an eye an out for an unknown ancient vampire who she had no idea what he look like.

She dances for the next two songs but stops and looks around when she doesn't see Elena or Bonnie, Jeremy is missing too. She pushes her dance partner away and looks for Stefan or Damon but their missing too, so is Ric.

She leaves the dance and steps out looking around but sees no one. She starts down the hall to the right but stops when she realizes that one of her new abilities as a vampire was that she could hear a long distance if she listens hard enough. She tucks her hair behind her ears and focuses on finding Elena.

She hears her asking someone, "Okay, so where are you taking us?"

Alaric answers shortly after with, "Just a little further."

She tries to pinpoint where their voices where coming from but she couldn't get an accurate read so she decided to follow the voices.

Elena says, "Wait...Something's not right." She can hear her stopping.

Bonnie's voice is next. "Where's Jeremy?"

She hears someone stop walking and then laugh she recognize as Ric followed by him saying, "I just had to get away from that dance. The sixties, ugh. Not my decade." She makes a right at the end of the hall as she continues to listen to the three of them talk.  
"I mean, whose call was that, anyway? I much prefer the twenties. The style, the parties, the jazz."

She walks closer to the three of them stepping around the corner just as Elena asks Rick if he was still on vervain.

"Now why would ask that Elena?"

"What's going on?" Bonnie answers.

"Okay," Alaric sighs, "I'll give you a hint. I'm not Alaric."

There's a slight pause and Elena nearly whispers, "Klaus."

Alyssa stops listening now that she has a more accurate pinpoint as to where they are, she uses her vamp speed the rest of the way pinning him against the lockers.

"Go! Get out here!" When she doesn't hear them move she turns to the, "Now!"

Bonnie drags a reluctant Elena away and Alyssa turns back to Alaric/Klaus.

"I know I can't kill you because you're possessing a friend, but I can make it hurt." She tosses him across the hall into the adjacent lockers. His back hits it with a loud thud. He hits the ground and get up smiling. She walks over to him picking him up by his throat. "On second thought," She squeezed his throat hard, "maybe I just ought to kill you right now and get it over with."

"I guess I didn't happen to mention I knew a witch too. If you kill this body, I'll just get a new one. Maybe even Jeremy."

She squeezes his neck harder. "Don't ever threaten my family." She loosens her grip when he starts to change colors and drops him to the floor and he gasps for air. "Besides Jeremy isn't who you want, Elena is, and I can give her to you, when the time's right. But first," she bends down so that she's at eye level with her. "You and I are going to make a little deal."

He smiles at her response.

She leaves Klaus after she makes the same deal with him that she did with Elijah regarding the protection of her family and finds Damon and Bonnie in the next hall over discussing the details of Klaus possessing Alaric. She fills them in on Klaus's plans to force Bonnie to use all her powers. "He knows that you harness the powers of the witches." She says.

"He's trying to kill me."

"By making you use your powers?" It seemed like a suicide mission to her.

"To kill Klaus I would need to use all the powers I got from the witches, which could kill me."

She turns to Damon, "I'm guess you already knew that." She turns back to Bonnie. "Have you told Jeremy?"

"He doesn't want me to do it."

"Of course he doesn't and you're not. At least not tonight anyway."

Damon notices the look in her eyes and says, "You got a plan."

"Yeah I do," she answers him and then looks at Bonnie. "Are still willing to do anything to protect Elena?"

She tells her she is and Alyssa explains her plan is to make Klaus believe that she's dead. "You think you can do that?"

"I think so."

"Good. We only got one shot at this, better make it believable." She walks away from them in order to find Elena. She needed her to see and believe that Bonnie was really dead if they were going to sell it to Klaus. After some searching, she finds Elena with Stefan. "Thank God I found you guys."

"Why?" Stefan could hear the "What happened?"

"It's Bonnie. She went after Klaus."

Panic swept through Elena. "Where is she?"

"I don't know. I tried to stop her when Damon told me what could happen to her but I couldn't. Elena I'm sorry." Elena rushes off to try and find her with Stefan hot on her trail. Alyssa legs back a while before follows them putting on a mask of worry when they find Damon wandering in the hall.

"There you are." He says.

Elena asks, "What are you doing? Where's Bonnie?"

His response, "She's doing what she has to do."

Elena knows what he meant but still can't help but ask, "What?"

"Where is she?" Stefan asks soon after.

"Stefan, let her do this."

"Damn it, Damon, where is she?!"

Damon shows them away and Elena runs in the direction. Damon stops Alyssa from following Elena and Stefan telling her, "Elena wasn't part of the plan."

"The only way this works is if Klaus believes it. So Elena has to. He needs to see her reaction to believe it and the only way he will if she doesn't know that it's not real. You want to keep her safe, this is the only way. Now," she snatches her arm away from him, "if you'll excuse me I have to go watch my sister watch her best friend die."

She did just that, after Bonnie collapsed from the power she was throwing at Klaus Elena held her in her arms crying. "Stefan! Stefan, I can't find her pulse! Stefan! Do something, please! Stefan, please! Just give her blood, do something, please!

Stefan slowly looks up at Elena. "It's too late. I'm sorry."

Elena's still crying and shaking her head in disbelief. "No! No. No, no, no, no, no! Bonnie! Bonnie, please, no! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

Alyssa kneeled beside her playing the loving and concerned sister she held her for a moment before telling her that she needed to go.

"What about Bonnie?"

"Damon and I will take care of her. Elena look at me," She turns her and makes her look at her, "I know this hurts and it's going to for a while but Klaus is still out there and without Bonnie we have no way to protect you so you have to go. Now, or Bonnie would have died for nothing. Stefan, get her out of here." She says to him when Elena fails to move.

Stefan grabs Elena and helps her to get up. "Hey, hey, hey." He says to her in a soothing voice trying to get her to go.

"No. Jeremy. Oh, my God, Jeremy. What about Jeremy?"

"I'll find him." Alyssa tells her, "but you have to go."

Elena gets up. She looks at Bonnie's body, crying and screaming. Stefan takes her and they leave.

"Well that was very convincing." Damon says from a corner in the room.

She stood. "Just get her out of here. I got to find Jeremy before he hears about Bonnie before I get a chance to explain." She leaves him alone in the cafeteria in search of Jeremy.

She finds him outside of the gym and takes him him somewhere private so she can tell him about faking Bonnie's death. Naturally, he wants to go see her before and she takes him to the old witch property where Damon has taken her body. She sets him up with everything they need and drives over the the Salvatore place also known as Elena's new home and steps inside.

The first thing she hears when she does is the Elena's angry voice and she walks into here they're sitting in the living room.

She address Damon as she leans against the wall. "I take it from how pissed she is that you haven't told her about Bonnie."

"If she calmed down long enough I could tell her."

This seem to calm her and she looks between the two. "Tell me what?"

Alyssa walks explains to her as she walks in the room, "that Bonnie isn't dead." She walked over to the bar pouring herself a drink. "We, or rather I had to me make it look that way because Klaus wouldn't have stopped until he did." She turns to face them. "And he would have succeeded and there would have been no way we would've been able to stop him if he did. The only way to save the both of you was to kill her. You're welcome." She took a sip of her drink and watch as Elena tries to process what she just heard.

Stefan, who was able to process it just a little faster says, "You know, you could have told me."

She shrugs, "it really was a spur of the moment thing Stefan, beside I couldn't trust you wouldn't go blabbing to your girlfriend."

"Do you understand what you put her through?"

"Yes Stefan I do. If you don't recall I went through same thing with bestie once upon a time, only she couldn't magically bring herself back to life."

Elena steps up, "is that what this was about? Some kind of payback for Vicki?"

"No, Elena, it was about keeping you alive. All any of this is, is about keeping you alive. For that to happen, people are going to die. I'm trying to make sure those people aren't Jenna or Jeremy or anybody else that we love."

She turns to Stefan, "So to answer your question the reason why I didn't tell you or Damon that I was involving Elena is 'because neither one of you are ever going to be able to do what's necessary. You're both so focus on doing what you think she would want you'll never see the bigger picture. So I have to. I'll make all the life and death decisions while you're busy worrying about collateral damage."

She turns to Elena, "you're worried about playing the martyr," she turns to Damon, "and while you obsessed over Elena. Hell I'm even willing to play the bad guy. But at the end of the day, we all still be alive because I don't care about her feelings or whether or not she hates me. I'll leave the two of you to worry about that while you're coddling her." She sits her glass down on the table. "I'll be the one actually keeping her alive."

She walks out of the living room and pretends as if she's leaving. As soon as She's sure no one's watching she switches course and goes into the basement. Damon's voice present in her mind telling her what a bad idea what she was about to do was but she had no choice.

Klaus possessing Alaric wasn't something anyone of them saw coming and who's to say his threat about jumping into Jeremy's body wasn't real. Even if they had come into some form of agreement. She wasn't about to trust it.

She needed to protect the few people she had left that she actually cared about and there was only one person who she trusted to do that.

She peeks inside of his cell at his body laying on the floor before opening the door. She removes the dagger in Elijah's chest and sits down on the floor next to his body waiting for him to wake up. She just hope that she wouldn't live to regret it.


	18. Klaus

Night turns to morning as she sits and waits for Elijah to wake up from his dagger induce sleep. She wasn't sure how long it was suppose to take but she knew that it better be before either Stefan and especially Damon discovers what she was doing. Because an original was a lot more likely to hear her out than any Salvatore especially Damon.

He wouldn't have been able to Elijah was the only option she had. Of course there was the deal she made with Klaus but she wasn't that desperate, yet. But there was only a matter of time before Klaus came to claim Elena now that he thought that Bonnie was dead and they couldn't take him on without Elijah.

Too bad you're taking your sweet time waking up.

Time she didn't have. She just hoped that he would wake up soon.

She gets up and walks down the hall to the fridge where the blood bags hoping that it would inspire him to wake up and if it didn't he was going to need it after being dead for so long.

She hadn't expected to see Damon exiting the room she was on her way to because of the human blood bag he called girlfriend she knew was close by.

"I thought you left."

"I did." She answers Damon thankful that she had the sense to change out of her sixties clothes from the night before. Even if it meant she had to borrow Elena's. "I just came for the food. I thought it'd be best to restock when Jenna wasn't home."

"Still hasn't forgiven you for lying about Isobel?"

"No, and it doesn't look like she will anytime soon."

"Maybe it's better that way, with Klaus in town. It's best if she keeps her distance."

"Yeah. Maybe." She walks past him listening to his footsteps to make sure it was safe before returning back to Elijah. When she walks back into the cell, she could see signs that he was beginning to wake up. His skin wasn't the ashen gray that it had been.

She careful walks over to him bending down next to him. "Elijah," She lightly touches him and standing in room lined with candles. The room is filled with guests talking to each other. She spots Elijah not too far off from where she stands and sees somebody walk over to him.

"Ah, good evening, Trevor. I am pleased you could join us."

"I could not miss the birthday celebration." Trevor responds and it was then she realizes that she somehow got sucked into one of Elijah's memories. Though she wasn't sure why he chose that particular one.

"No, considering the gift you claim to bear. Where is this mystery girl of which you speak?"

"Right this way."

Elijah follows him and she follows Elijah to who she knew to be Katherine by what she was wearing.

"My dear." Trevor says gesturing towards Elijah whose in shock.

Katherine says, "Hello."

Elijah recovers from his surprise after a few moments and says, "forgive me. You remind me of someone."

"Katerina," Trevor says, "may I introduce the lord Elijah."

Elijah holds out his hand. She takes it and curtsies, "Pleasure, my lord."

"The pleasure's mine. Katerina."

He kisses her hand and she comes out of it. She sees that his eyes are closed again and she wonders if he's gone back to sleep but then his body starts to spasm and he gets up gasping for air. "I can't-I can't breathe! What's happening to me?"

He rushes over near the door but slams into the doorway. She rushes over to him and holds him up.

"I can't...I can't be in this house."

She realizes why. "You're not invited in."

"Then get me out of here."

She uses her speed and quickly runs upstairs and gets him to the front door letting his body do the rest. He steps outside and she stays at the door where she know it is safe and watches as he stands from his crouching position and rushes to enter but freezes at the threshold, unable to enter.

"What happened?"

She taps her ears to let him know that there are ears that could possibly hear them. She whispers, "I'll tell you. Not here."

Unsure of what happened or her involvement in it he whispers, "Can I trust you?"

She steps outside where he is now free to get to her and hands him the dagger and the blood bag. He takes both but isn't convinced that he could trust her but steps aside and lets her pass. She walks to her car and she follows and they start to drive away from the Salvatore house. She wanted to put as much distance between them as possible knowing that it was only a matter of time before someone notices that Elijah isn't where they last left him but she didn't know where they were going and asked if there was specific destination he had in mind. She needed to gain his trust again and the only way to do that was to let him take control.

"Just keep driving."

She looks towards Elijah who is drinking from the bag and see that his color is beginning to comeback and comments, "you're looking better."

"Well considering I've been dead for the last few months."

She looks over at him, "sorry." She looks back to the road. "Damon and Katherine were guarding you like bloodhounds." She glances at him again. "It took me a while to be able to get to you," looking back to the road she says, "I tried enlisting the help of your witch friends but they failed miserably. I had to take matters into my own hands."

"What may I ask made you take such a risk?"

"You've held up you're end of the deal so far, thought it'd best if I kept mine. Then there's Klaus, whose decided to make a very dramatic entrance."

"Klaus is here?"

"Yeah, and he's taken over Alaric's body somehow." She looks at him but he doesn't seem to be surprise at what he just learned. "You don't look surprised."

"Possessing another for his own personal agenda is one of his favorite tricks."

"It's also one we never saw coming," it was one she never thought possible. "It's the reason why I woke you. You're the only one who knows him. So you'll know what he'll do next."

"I've never been able to predict what he'll do next. I do know that he won't stop until he gets what he wants, no matter how long it takes."

Katherine running for five hundred years and faking her own death proved that.

"Neither will I," it was why she was choosing to believe in Elijah. It was either him or Klaus and she believed she was choosing the lesser of two evils.

"I take it Elena doesn't know about," he waved around them, "this."

"I couldn't risk her telling Stefan." She knew he would have never would have agreed. "I couldn't risk it because none of them are willing to do what is necessary."

"Leaving you to make the hard decisions and to deal with consequences."

She looks at him, "it's why I'm risking everything in trusting you. Don't make me regret it."

She had enough to contend with for the next hundred or so years.

"Were almost there. Turn here."

She does as she is told and it takes just a split second for her to figure out where they were and she turns to look at him. "The Lockwood Estate?"

Elijah doesn't answer and simply gets out of the car. Alyssa, having no choice but to follow does and stops beside him just as he knocks on the door. Carol opens the door.

"Elijah, Alyssa! What are you doing here?" She takes a look at Elijah's tattered and dirty suit and asks, "What happened?"

Elijah responds, "I've had a bit of an incident, Carol. I'm hoping you could help."

"Well, I'm on my way to a meeting, so I-"

He looks into her eyes, "It won't take but a minute of your time."

She smiles and Alyssa realizes that he'd just compelled her, "Of course. Anything you need."

"Thank you." They enter. "Well, first things first. I'm going to need a change of clothing."

"Well, we can try one of my husband's suits. I haven't boxed them up yet."

He smiles politely. "Wonderful."

She goes upstairs.

Alyssa asks, "How did you know she's not on vervain?"

He answers, "'Because I'm the one who got her off it. Right before your friends killed me. Twice. If you'll excuse me. I'll be down in a moment."

He goes upstairs and Alyssa walks into the living room to wait for Elijah when her phone rings. She answers.

"Tell me you weren't that stupid." Damon's angry voice says on the other end.

"Can't," she shrugs even though he couldn't see it. "Because I did. Because neither of you were willing to do what was necessary. So like always, I had to take matters into my own hands."

"It's Elena's life you're taking into your own hands."

"I'm doing this for Elena, Damon. You can't see that, but I am and for you too, for Stefan, Bonnie. Her's isn't the only life at stake anymore. I know her life is the only life you care about saving but she isn't the only person that matters to me. So I'm choosing to trust Elijah. I just need you to trust me."

He wasn't sure if he could and Alyssa knew that given her feelings for her and his for her sister. She was sure he wasn't going to trust anyone but himself with Elena's life but she was going to give him any other choice.

"You do know he'll never forgive you if we can't save her." Elijah comes in after hearing the end of the conversation.

"I know." She sticks her phone in her pocket and turns to see him dressed in a fresh suit, "But there far greater things at risk than whatever feelings that he feels for me. What he feels for Elena, won't allow him to see that. So if Damon hating me for the rest of eternity means one less funeral I have to attend, than it's something I'll bare. But before we take on Klaus, I need to know a few things first."

He nods giving her permission to ask whatever questions she might have.

"I saw something right before you woke up, when I touched you."

He looked perplexed. "I wasn't aware that I let you into my thoughts."

"You were at a party with Trevor. It's what the first time you seemed Katherine. You looked pretty stunned to see her. Why?"

He leaned against the fireplace mantle underneath the Lockwood's family photo. "Klaus has spent thousands of years looking for another Petrova doppelganger. It was luck that have it that Trevor had brought her to Klaus birthday party. "

"How do you even know Klaus?"

"Klaus and I go way back. So far back that I was there the day mother birth him.."

"I'm sorry," she wasn't sure she heard that. "Did you just say mother?"

"Yes. Klaus is my brother." She still couldn't wrap her head around that. "Our mother bore seven children."

"So you were human?"

"Our whole family was. Our origin as vampires is a very long story. Just know...We're the oldest vampires in the world. We are the Original family, and from us all vampires were created."

"Right, but Klaus is your brother and you want him dead." She wanted to make sure she covered all the important parts so far. "Yet you still made Katharine pay for betraying him. Why?"

He didn't answer her question, he just simply leaned away from the fireplace and says, "I need some air. I'm still feeling a tad...dead. Come." He turns around and leaves the room. Having no other choice she follows him wanting to learn more about his family.

"So you're telling me there's a whole family of originals running around out there somewhere and nothing can kill you but wood from an oak tree?"

"A tree my family made sure burned."

"And that's where the white ash for the dagger comes from."

"Yes. The witches won't allow anything truly immortal to walk the earth. Every creature needs to have a weakness in order to maintain the balance."

"So if the Sun can't kill an Original, why is Klaus so obsessed with breaking the Sun and Moon curse?"

"Right. The curse of the sun and the moon. It's all so...biblical-sounding, don't you think?" He smiles.

She doesn't get the joke. "What's so funny?"

"The Aztec drawing that speak of a the sun and the moon curse wasn't done by a shaman but by Klaus."

This confuses her further and she tries to make sense of what she was hearing, "so Klaus was the only one who knew about the sun and the moon curse? Wouldn't it have been better to keep the secret to himself so he can be the only one allowed to walk in the sun?"

"Easiest way to discover the existence of a doppelgänger or to get your hands on some long lost moonstone, is to have every single member of two warring species on the lookout."

"So does the curse exist or not?"

"There is a curse. Just not that one. The real one's much worse. It's a curse placed on Klaus."

She stops and looks at him, "What are you talking about? What is this curse?" Her phone starts to buzz in her pocket.

"Are you going to get that?"

She takes her phone out of her pocket and turns it off. She put it back in her pocket and looks at him so he could finish his story. When he doesn't immediately continue she says, "So this this curse placed on Klaus?" and starts walking again.

He picks up where he left off. "My family was quite close, but Klaus and my father did not get on too well."

"I know what's that like," she commentates.

"When we became vampires, we discovered the truth. Klaus was not my father's son. My mother had been unfaithful many years before. This was her darkest secret. Klaus is from a different bloodline. Of course, when my father discovered this, he hunted down and he killed my mother's lover and his entire family. Not realizing, of course, that he was igniting a war between species that rages until this day."

"A war between the species?"

"The vampires...and the werewolves."

"So if Klaus' real father was from a werewolf bloodline and he was turned into a vampire," she says to herself before looking at him, "what does that make him, Vampire, or werewolf?"

"He's both. A hybrid would be deadlier than any werewolf or vampire. Nature would not stand for such an imbalance of power. Therefore the witches, the servants of nature, saw to it that my brother's werewolf side would become dormant."

She was beginning to understand. They start walking again. "That's the curse that Klaus wants to break?"

"He wants to trigger that part of him that's a werewolf. If allowed, Klaus would sire his own bloodline. He'd build his own race. Endangering not just vampires, but everyone."

"But you helped him?"

"I helped him because I loved him. That's changed, now he must die."

"What about the dagger?"

"When a werewolf is wounded by silver, it heals. An Original can't be killed by anything but white oak ash on a silver dagger."

She understands what he's getting at, "so the dagger won't on Klaus." She says more to herself, "meaning there's no way to kill him. "

"There's one way to kill any supernatural species...at the hands of the servants of nature themselves."

She remember him mentioning nature when he was referring witches and thought of Bonnie. It comes to her, "If a witch can channel that much power could kill him. But using that much power could kill them."

"The curse must be broken during the full moon. When Klaus is in transition. That's" when he'll be at his most vulnerable. A witch with enough power...can kill Klaus.

"What if I told you that I knew a witch that could channel that much power?"

"Then I would should tell you that I've found a way to save the life the doppelganger."

If what he was saying was true that meant,"Elena would be safe. If that's the case, why didn't it work with Katherine."

"Katerina took matters into her own hands first. I believe you already know how that played out."

"You cared about her, didn't you? It's why you wanted to make her pay."

"It's a common mistake, I'm told. And it's one I won't make again."

She takes out her phone and turns it back on seeing that it was getting late. "Hopefully you're brother will put her out of her misery sooner or later." She pushes the button to listen to her voicemail. "It'll solve at least one of our problems." She puts the phone up to her ear and listens to the messages that she had gotten from both Jenna, Stefan and Elena. The last two informed her about Jenna's run in with Klaus and she quickly pushes the button to call her back.

"Hey," she answers when she picks up, "I just got your message about Jenna. Is she okay?"

"She's confused and afraid." She hears her whispers which mean that Jenna must have been nearby. "Are you okay? Damon told me about you freeing Elijah."

"It was the only way to save Bonnie and stop Klaus without risking everyone's life, including yours. He told me that he found a way to save the doppelganger."

"And you believe him?"

She looks back at him. "Yeah, I do. But if this is going to work I need you to trust me. Stefan and Damon needs to be on board with this too. You need to convince them." She couldn't have Damon going rogue and screwing things up. "It's the only way to save Bonnie Elena. It's the only way to save all of us"

"I'll talk to them."

"You better do it soon." She hangs up and turns to Elijah. "Now let's talk about the new terms of our deal."

Alyssa walks back into the Salvatore home to see a pile of books and the shelves on the floor. "What happened here?" She looks to Stefan who looks a little worse for wear and Damon who has a drink in his hand, "or do I even need to ask."

"It's nothing," Stefan says, "what did you learn from Elijah? Did he tell you how to kill Klaus?"

She removes her jacket just as Elena comes in the room. "Amongst other things," she walks over to the bar pour herself a drink, "but let's start with the fact that Klaus made up whole thing about the sun and the moon curse." She turns to the room, "or the fact that Klaus is Elijah's brother, whom he desperately wants dead" She takes a small sip of her drink so that both revelations could sink in before retelling the story of Klaus and the real reason he needed a witch, wolf, moonstone, and the doppelganger. "There's something else. He said that he found a way to save the life of the doppelganger."

"How?" Damon asks curiosity piqued.

"I don't know. But whatever it is, he was going to use it on Katherine but she ran and he never got to use."

"Nobody finds it strange that he never thought to mention it before."

"Well we never really gave him a chance Damon, what with you killing him and all. He's willing to let by gones be gones if though. All he asks for is that apologize."

Damon scoffs, "apologize?"

"Yes Damon, apologize, it's this thing where people expression regret for what they've done. I know it's a foreign concept to you but it's not going to kill to try it. Klaus however will if we go at him alone. At least with Elijah's help we stand a chance and the only person who dies will be Klaus. I said that I would find another way and I have."

"Yeah but Elena still dies."

"But Bonnie doesn't." Elena speaks up after giving it some consideration. "And I'll come back."

"It's your life Elena so it's ultimately your choice."

She didn't need more than a moment before deciding, "if it will save Bonnie I say let's do it." She says standing. "I'm in." Elena turns to Stefan, "Stefan?"

He sighs and after a moment says, "Alyssa right it's your decision."

Elena and Alyssa turns to Damon and Elena says, "Damon"

"Are you really willing to trust him?"

"I am."

"You can all go to hell." He leaves. She thinks about following him but there wasn't anything that she could say that was going to make it better and that was something else she needed to do first.

"Jenna," she opens the door to the room she was staying in the for the night. She was sure she wasn't sleeping even though that's what Elena had told her.

She was standing at the window probably trying to make sense of what she heard. She turns to her when she hears her come in.

She walks over to her and hugs her. "I'm so sorry we lied to you." She pulls back and looks at her. They walk to the bed to sit down. "We thought we were protecting you."

"That's what Elena said."

"What else did she tell you?"

"Nothing, she tried, but I couldn't." She shakes her head and Alyssa grabs her hands.

"I know. And I don't want to pile anything else on you but there's something that you should know, about me. And what happened…."


	19. The Last Day

"I can't believe you're a vampire." Jenna says when Alyssa comes back with a cup of coffee. "I can't believe you died and I didn't know."

"I wanted to protect you." Alyssa says crossing her legs under her as she sat in front of him. "I thought the less you knew the safe you would be."

"I'm the one that's supposed to be protecting you and I failed."

She took a hold of her hand that wan't holding her cup. "We're a family, we protect each other. This is something you couldn't protect me from. But I can protect Elena from her fate." She stood up. "Elijah's here and we need to go over the plan for tonight. You going to be okay alone for a while?"

"Yeah." She still needed time to processes everything that she learned.

"Okay." She walks into the hall and runs into Damon who's coming out of his room. "Look who finally decided to stop sulking. Guess you heard Elijah's here."

"Guess that means you're still going along with you idiotic plan."

"It's the only one we got." She walks away from him and and goes downstairs where Elijah, Stefan, and Elena are in the library. Elijah is explaining to them about the sun and the moon curse and how if he breaks it than he'll be a true hybrid.

Damon asks as he comes in the room, "Then why are we letting him break the curse?"

Alyssa plops down on the couch beside Elena replying, "It's how we're going to kill him."

He looks around the room as if everyone needed to be reminded. "We have Bonnie."

Elena reminds him. "Bonnie can't use that much power without dying."

"I'll write her a great eulogy." Damon says.

That's wasn't an option for Elena and she told him so.

Stefan looks Elijah. "How do we break this curse?

"Well, the ritual itself is relatively straightforward." He comes forward. "The ingredients, so to speak, you already know."

Stefan lists the first, "the moonstone."

Elijah continue, "A witch will channel the power of the full moon to release the spell that's bound within the stone. After that, Klaus, being both werewolf and vampire, will sacrifice one of each."

Elena asks where she fits in and he answers, "The final part of the ritual." Elijah takes a wooden box from the shelf and sits it on the table. "Klaus must drink the blood of the doppelgänger...to the point of your death."

Damon looks at Elena. Stefan takes Elena's hand. She looks at him. He opens the box and takes a jar from it.

"And that's where you come in." It was the only part of the plan Elena fully understood.

Elijah cradles the glass bottle in his hand and turns to them. "This is an elixir that I acquired some 500 years ago for Katerina. It possesses mystical properties of resuscitation."

"I'll be dead?'"

"And then you won't."

Damon had doubts with the plan and spoke up, "And that's your plan? A magical witch potion with no expiration date?" He looks at Elena. "You want to come back to life, what about John's ring?"

Elijah tells him that those rings only work on human and the doppelganger was a supernatural occurrence so odds were the ring wouldn't work.

Damon who was still willing to trust in something he saw more than some magical potion that came from an original vampire he wasn't sure he could trust says, "I'll take those odds over your elixir. What if it doesn't work, Elena?"

Nonchalantly Elena says, "Then I guess I'll just be dead."

Damon looks at Stefan and he shrugs accepting the decision that Elena made. Damon then looks at Elijah and leaves.

Alyssa goes after him this time hoping that she could find a way to get him on board with the plan or at the very least doesn't do anything to screw it up and finds him outback drinking scotch.

"I could be wrong," She stops beside him leaning against the stone wall, "But I don't think scotch is what they meant by a well balanced meal." He gives her a blank look and she gets to the reason she followed him out. "I get why you don't want her to do this. It's a big risk one she might not survive and she knows it. She still wants to do it and you got to let her."

"She's going to get herself killed."

"She's willing to take that risk and do you know why, because she feels guilty. She's the reason that Klaus is here. If it wasn't for her none of this would be happen so she feels responsible and I can't blame her. I would too if I were in her shoes. So it makes sense that's she's willing to do anything to get rid him, even sacrificing herself. She's choosing to trust Elijah and so am I."

"Then that makes you both idiots."

"She's trusting you too. She's trusting that you'll let her choose what's best for her."

"If she trusts me then maybe you shouldn't trust her judgement." He tosses the rest of his drink out and goes inside.

She shook her head with a sigh before going back inside. It was going to be impossible to talk him willing going along with the plan. But she thought that even though he didn't like her decision that he would at least respect her enough to let her make her own decision, as naive as that was. He was too in love with her to let her risk her life on a maybe. If it had been Jenna or Jeremy, she wouldn't have went along with it without a sure thing.

"Damon," she went after him hoping that she could at least convince him not to do anything that would jeopardize their plan. Jenna screaming for someone to get out changed those plans and she walked towards wear she heard Jenna at the front door. Elijah, Stefan, Damon, and Elena were there as well watching Jenna point a crossbow out Ric. She tells him to stay away from her

Her first instinct was to attack him but she refrained from doing it after hearing him say that it was actually him and not Klaus and that Klaus had let him do.

Damon, just as skeptical as she was asks him to prove it and he looks at Jenna. "Okay, uh, first night you and I spent together, Jeremy walked in right when I was about to…"

Jenna stops him before he could reveal anymore and says, "Okay, it's him," and lowers the crossbow.

Alyssa looks at her aunt with a raise eyebrow that told her that she was going to be seeking answers to that later.

Now that they were sure it was actually him and not Klaus Stefan asks, "Why did he let you go?"

"He wanted me to deliver a message. The sacrifice happens tonight."

It wasn't anything that the didn't suspect but hearing it out loud suddenly made it real. Too real for Damon, because he walks away and goes upstairs. Alyssa let him stew in his own misery for the time being but knew it wasn't a good thing to let him stay there too long. That's where he does the most dangerous thinking and make terrible decisions. But she couldn't focus on that right now.

"Do you remember anything that happen?" She needed to know if Alaric remembered anything from Klaus's time in his body. Like if he suspected anything with Bonnie, or that that had more than one trick up their sleeves.

They are back in the living room with the exception of Damon, something tries hard not to think about as Rick answer a question she felt important to their plan.

"No. It's like I blacked out and woke up three days later. Katherine was there."

Stefan speaks, telling her something that everyone already knew but he didn't since as she just learns, he can't remember anything, "She's under compulsion. Damon snuck her some vervain, but she can't leave until Klaus tells her she can.

Elena looks around and notices their missing one person, "Where is Damon?"

Jenna answers, "I saw him go upstairs."

She wasn't the only one notice him slip away. Elena gets up and leaves and Alyssa follows her out stopping her before she got to the stairs, "I think you should give him some time before you try and talk to him." With the mood he was in, he was liable to do something stupid, and she was almost afraid of what that something stupid might be.

Elena couldn't or didn't understand what she knew and she knew that's why she felt the need to ask, "Why?"

"Because he's not in the right headspace to hear what you have to say. Going up there now, would be a mistake." She spent enough time with him to know that.

Of course, Elena felt a little differently and says, "I can handle him."

She didn't think she could but backed off and says, "okay." She turns back and heads back into the living room.

Stefan meets her at the door, "where's Elena?"

"Talking to Damon." She folds her arms across her chest, "I tried telling her it wasn't a good idea."

"Maybe she can get through to him."

"Not when he's like this she won't." She knew Stefan would better understand her concerns regarding Damon than Elena would. After all, he sent her after him to babysit him on more than one occasion. "He's scared Stefan and feeling helpless. Those two combinations together for Damon are Dangerous. He's liable to do anything."

She was worried about what that anything was. She could Stefan was as well, cause his face contorted in a look that she knew was concern rather than his normal pouty brooding one.

"What's wrong?"

Him running upstairs was the answer to her question. Instead of following him, she stays downstairs deciding that Stefan should be the one to have to deal with his brother for once and was content on doing just that until she heard a scuffle upstairs.

She ran upstairs and into Damon's room just as he drives a stake through Stefan abdomen. She rushes towards them and pushes Damon away from his brother and Elena rushes to Stefan side turning to Damon yelling for him to get out.

It's then, when she's facing her, that Alyssa sees the blood around her mouth and she turns to Damon with wide eyes realizing what he had done.

Alaric and Jenna arrives at that time Alaric asking, "What the hell's going on?"

Elena yells from someone to get Damon out. Alyssa takes the honor and pleasure of doing that pushing him out the door. She gives him a finally shove when they're in the hallway just as upset as Elena had been, "what the hell did you just do?!"

He got into her face. "I just saved her life."

She shoves him away, "by making her a vampire." She shoves him again. "By taking her choice away. You are the last person who should be making that choice for her."

"I had to! She was going to get herself killed. We both know that elixir would never have worked. At least this way, I know she'll come back."

"Yeah. But at what cost."

The look Damon gave her told her that he hasn't thought about the consequences. He never did and other people ended up paying the price for it usually with their lives.

Elena was just one person in a long list of people lives that were affected by Damon's spur of the moment decisions and she had a feeling hers wasn't the only one.

She needed to do something before the ripple effect trickled down to the people that she cared about and that meant keeping him from going through with the ritual that he had planned. The good about rituals was if you took out even just one ingredient than the rest would be useless meaning Elena would be safe. At least until the next full moon when she could be given the elixir that would bring her back to life and as human and not a vampire.

Luckily, she knew just where to find that one crucial part of the part of the ritual already waiting.

She leans against the doorway of Alaric's apartment, "you gotta admit," she looks around the apartment Katherine had been trapped in. Katherine tilts her head in her direction and she knew she was asking herself why was she there, "this place is a whole lot nicer than you're other prison. I hope you haven't go to use to it. It's time to go."

"If you haven't heard Klaus compelled me not to go anywhere. I'm trapped."

"I heard." She leans off the doorway but stays where she is since she's unable to go inside. "I also heard Damon slipped you vervain so you're not as trapped as you'd like me or Klaus to believe."

"I also know if I leave Klaus will kill me."

"We'll he's planning to do that anyway. This way you'll live another month and I can correct some bad decisions that were made on behalf of Damon. Whom you owe, and I'm here to collect."

"You try to stop this, Klaus will Kill you, and everyone you've ever met." She warns and not first for the stop time but it appears she didn't get it.

"I don't want to stop it. Just delay it until the next full moon. Taking you out of the equation does that so move your doppelganger ass now before Klaus comes back." She turns to leave thinking that Katherine would follow but she just backs away from the door.

"I would." She says and Alyssa turns back to see that she had no plans on following her. "Except, I'm not the one he's planning on sacrificing."

"What?"

"Yeah. He's got Caroline Forbes and Tyler Lockwood. Therefore, I'm in the clear."

She walks back towards the door but since she wasn't invited in wasn't able to go any further. "I wonder where he got that idea from."

"Hey, I'm just trying to stay alive long enough to get myself out of here."

"Where are they?"

"I tell you Klaus know I fibbed if they go missing and I'm dead."

"And if you don't help me you're never going to get Stefan back." That peaked Katherine's curiosity and she walks back over to the door. "Damon fed Elena his blood. So when dies she won't stay dead. And just imagine how fun it will be competing with Elena for Stefans attention for the rest of eternity."

Katherine doesn't need to think about it and quickly gives up where he's hiding them. "The tomb. He's got them in the tomb."

Damon and Alaric are standing behind Alyssa when she turns around and she isn't surprise to see them when she does. She knew Damon would have come to his senses sooner or later and realized that he made a big mistake and would want to fix it.

"Katherine isn't whom Klaus plans to sacrifice." She says as she walks past them. Alaric turns to look at Damon before they follow her out of the building.

"Rick and I will take it from here."

Alyssa stops and turns to him, "like I'm going to trust your decision making process. You and I are doing this together." She looks over at Ric. "You need to go. You don't need to take the blame for this. Protect Jenna until this is over. I'm going to let her loose you too."

A few seconds pass before he agrees and leaves. Alyssa watches him go before turning towards Damon. "Klaus has got Caroline and Tyler in old fells church tomb." She tells him as they walk to her car.

He opens the car door. "I thought you said Tyler was gone."

"Well," she opens her car door, "it looks like he came home." She got in the car and started it up driving to the watering hole. They got out and walked the rest of the way to the tomb in silence.

When they get there they see someone guarding the interest to the tomb. "Which one are you trying to save? The blond, or the wolf? Did you really think Klaus would leave them unprotected?

Damon response is, "wishful thinking."

He rushes over to Maddox and pins him on the ground. While Maddox is distracted with Damon, Alyssa runs past them into the tomb and sees both Caroline and Tyler in chains.

She goes to Tyler helping him out of his chains.

"How did you know we were here?"

She breaks the chains, "I'll explain later. We got to go."

She walks over to Caroline about to help her out her chains when she hears a gunshot coming from above the cellar. "Damon," she forgets the chains and runs back up top. She sees Damon with a gun standing over Matt.

"What happened?" Alyssa rushes to his side, she exhales when she sees that he's still breathing. She looks back at Damon for an explanation.

"Care to tell me why Mystic Falls favorite bus boy is carrying a gun loaded with wooden bullets?" He tosses the gun aside. "I thought you compelled him after Caroline stupidly told him about us."

"I thought I did. He must have been on vervain."

"You think."

Tyler and Caroline came up from the cellar.

Damon turns when he sees Tyler and look at Alyssa. "You shouldn't let him out of his chains."

"I wasn't going to leave him here to get sacrificed."

Caroline sees Matt on the ground and rushes over to him. "Hey, Matt!" She looks at Damon. "Hey. Did you hit him?!"

"Yeah. He was carrying a gun with loaded bullets." Alyssa told Caroline and walked over to Tyler who was looking at up at the sky. She does the same to see the clouds pass the moon and she turns to Tyler. "Hey, are you going to be okay."

He looks down at her holding his chest. "It's starting."

Alyssa nods in understanding and turns to Damon. "We got to go. Now." They needed to get Tyler chained up before he changed.

They start walking towards the cellar when Tyler lets out a low groan that changes into a low growl.

Matt confuses asks, "what's happening? Is he okay?"

Damon response is, "he better not wolf out on us."

Damon's phone rings. He answers. It's Stefan.

"Bad time, little bro."

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Saving the day. I figured you'd understand. Just tell Elena to stay put."

"She's already gone, Damon."

"What?"

"Klaus came. He took her."

"I'll take care of it." He hangs.

Alyssa walks over to him worried after hearing the conversation. "How can the sacrifice still be happening? We have his vampire and his wolf."

Before he gets a chance to answer, Tyler doubles over and falls to the ground. The transformation begins.

Matt sceams, "Tyler!"

Alyssa turns to him and see him on the ground clutching his stomach and goes over to him. "I don't know if I can hold it off. Get out of here."

"It'll be okay." She tries to reassure him. "You've got time. We're almost there, just…"

"It's happening faster."

"It's going to be okay." He tries to reassure him but when he looks up his eyes are yellow and he rushes towards her but Damon intercepts him and they both fall to the ground. Damon is on his back and Tyler is above him. Alyssa pushes him off but Tyler bites him in the process. Damon gets up.

Alyssa checks him over worried that he might have gotten bitten in the process but Damon insists that he's fine.

Tyler yells for them to, "Get out of here!" as the change is about to happen.

Damon turns to them and says "get to the Lockwood cellar. If it held him in, it'll keep him out. If it doesn't...use these."

He gives the Alyssa the wooden bullets.

"It'll buy you a couple seconds. Go. Go!"

"I'm not leaving you."

He grabs a hold of Alyssa's shoulder. "Go."

She looks back at Tyler before running to the cellar where Caroline and Matt where headed. She reaches them right before Caroline is about to close the door.

"Down here." Alyssa tells them having been there with Tyler before.

Matt asks in a worried tone, "Is that going to hold?"

Alyssa answers, "No."

They go further into the cellar. Caroline is starts closing the iron gate. "Help me with the gate. Help me with the gate!"

Alyssa helps her. She closes it. Tyler the wolf enters the cellar and looks at them. She grabs the chains hooking it through the cellar door to hold it just as Tyler rushes forward trying to break through the gate. Caroline comes to hold the other end of the chain but Tyler starts to attack, fitting his snout through the bars of the gate and snapping and snarling. Caroline flinches but holds the gate steady. Matt aims the rifle at Tyler. Tyler backs up and attacks a second time.

"The door's not going to hold." He backs away while continuing to point the gun at Tyler. "Come on!"

"Tyler, please!"

Tyler doesn't let up on his attack. Matt shoots Tyler, who yelps in pain and backs away. Matt shoots him again.

Alyssa turns to Matt holding on tightly to the gate. "Matt! No, hey, no! It's Tyler!

"It's trying to kill us!" He goes to shoot again and Caroline yells, "wait!"

Caroline looks back. Tyler is lying on the ground, panting heavily. "He's wounded."

"Caroline, stay back."

Alyssa begins to unlock the gate. "We can go around him."

Matt looks at her like she has lost her mind. "Are you nuts?"

"You're not going to shoot him again, okay? Okay. Matt, take my hand." Alyssa extends her hand towards Matt as she opens the gate and walks out.

Matt continues to point the gun at Tyler. I got it

Looking back she says. "Matt, take my hand."

Matt finally complies and places the rifle over his shoulder. He takes her hand and she vamp-speeds the two of them out of the cellar. Alyssa stops once they were a safe distance and look at Caroline.

"Get back to Tyler's lock you're selves in there and don't come out until you know it's safe."

"Where are you going?"

"I gotta get back to Elena." She had no idea what was going on but from the brief talk Stefan had with Damon she knew it was nothing good. She put the rest of the bullets in her hand. "Keep him safe okay." Caroline nodded and Alyssa vamp-speed away running back to the old witches house where Bonnie had been stashed the last few weeks.

Stefan has just ended the call with whom she could only assume is Damon and the look on his face told her it was anything but good news. "Was that Damon? What did he say?" The look he gave her told her that is wasn't something she wanted to hear. "Stefan?"

"It's Jenna. Klaus has her. He's planning on sacrificing her."


	20. The Sun Also Rises

The first thing that went through her mind after finding out that Klaus had taken Jenna was Jeremy and shortly after Ric. She worried about how they both were going to take the news of her not only being turned but the news that she could potentially be sacrificed. The next was Jenna herself. She knew she was confused about what was happening to her and why. She knew because it was the same thoughts she had harbored what she was first turned. She also knew she had to have been worried about Elena as well.

It was her job to protect them, she felt like and admitted to both her and Elena and she felt like she had failed them. It was the worse feeling in the world, she knew from experience because she felt like not only did she fail Jenna but Elena as well. That feeling also came with a lot of guilt but she knew she couldn't give into that feeling because she wouldn't have been able do what she needed to next.

Jeremy was in the basement with Bonnie looking through what appears to be spells book. Bonnie was the first to notice her and when she did she got Jeremy's attention and he looks up at her. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Elijah and Stefan are upstairs." To Bonnie. "You mind if I have a second with Jeremy?"

Bonnie looks at Jeremy saying, "Sure, yeah. Of course," before she gets up and leaves the basement.

Jeremy could tell by the look on his sisters face that something was wrong and he ask, "What's the matter?"

"It's Jenna," she says stepping further into the room placing her hands in her the corner of her pockets. "Klaus has her. He's planning on using her in the sacrifice. Stefan is upstairs now with Rick and Elijah trying to figure out how to get her back."

"Why did Klaus take her in the first place? I thought he already had the vampire he was planning on sacrificing."

"He did. It was Caroline and any other day I would have let him sacrifice her; especially if I knew rescuing her would cause. But Damon being Damon decided he couldn't trust Elijah or his elixir and so he feed Elena his blood."

"So when she died she would come back as a vampire." He says understanding what prompted him to do so.

"He thought it was the only way to insure that she would come back," she couldn't help but defend him even though she didn't agree with what he did and his actions was the reason that Jenna was more than likely in transition right now and probably confused and scared. "We thought rescuing her would cause Klaus to delay the sacrifice for another month. Taking Jenna was just his way of punishing us for interfering."

"You said Stefan and Rick were working on a plan to save Jenna."

"Yeah. Stefan decided the best chance to save Jenna is by offering up a trade. He's offering up himself." Alyssa didn't care for that option much either but if it was Stefan or Jenna she was going to have to choose Jenna. "He think Klaus would want him more than Jenna."

"You're not going to actually let him offer himself up are you?"

"I don't like it anymore than you do Jere, but if it saves Jenna's life than I'm not going to stop him if he wants to do it."

"Damon is the reason Klaus took Jenna in the first place. If he wouldn't have forced Elena to drink his blood..."

"Caroline and Tyler would be the ones getting sacrificed. Either way, Elena loses someone she cares about and I won't let that person be Jenna." She didn't care what had to happen or who died, she wasn't about to lose the only parent she had left. She just hoped Jeremy would forgive her for what she had to do.

She finds Stefan after her talk with Jeremy. He's surrounded by Bonnie, Ric, and Elijah. "Can we talk?" He excuses himself from the group and follows her outside where they could talk. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry. It's all my fault. If I hadn't of rescued Caroline and Tyler Klaus would have never took Jenna and you wouldn't have to sacrifice yourself to save her. "

"I'm not about to let Elena lose her aunt."

"Yeah but now she's going to lose you. And what about Damon…" She didn't even want to think about what his reaction was going to be after he learns that Stefan planned on willingly getting himself killed and it was his actions that caused it. "You know he's going to blame himself for this right and we both know how well he does with guilt or any emotion. He's not going to have you there to pull him back."

"No. But he'll have the next best thing." He smiles a little, "you."

"Well now that's not fair." He knew how she felt about being the Jminy cricket to his Pinocchio but she also couldn't say no either. "I can't very well say no to a dying man can I."

His smile grew a little, "no."

She sighs dramatically rolling her eyes and agrees. "Fine, but only because this is partially my fault and you are saving my family so I guess it's only fair that I save yours, even it's from himself."

"Thank you." He says with a soft smile and a nod and walks away.

Letting him walk away like that didn't feel right to her so she calls out to him and he stops turning to face her. She breaks out into a small jog towards him wrapping her arms around his neck she hugs him. He wraps his arms around her waist pulling her close she says, "I'm sorry." She plunges a vervain filled syringe in the base of his neck and steps back watching him as he falls to his knees.

Elijah steps up beside her as he falls to the ground. He realizes what's happening and fights to stay awake so that he could stop her. But it was a losing battle one that he lost.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

She watches Stefan where they had she's placed Stefan out of sight from everyone so they would believe that he had gone ahead as planned and wouldn't stop her. "If I don't, he will. And I can't do it a third time" She says almost sorrowfully. She also couldn't do nothing as she watched one more person she loved die. She turns to face Elijah, "dying should be easier the second time around. At least this time me dying would have been for something. Dying in the place of someone you love doesn't seem like a bad way to go. Speaking of which," she crosses her arm, "Exactly how long do we have until Klaus plans on sacrificing Jenna?"

"After the moon sets the first to be killed is the the werewolf, the vampire shortly after than."

"So we don't have that long." They needed to get to Jenna before the werewolf could be sacrifice so she could offer herself up as a trade. "Has Bonnie finished the locator spell?" She had been working on it when she was talking to Jeremy.

"They're at Steven's Quarry."

She nods. "I'll head over there now before they notice I'm gone and finds Stefan. How long until you and Bonnie show?"

"Just as the moon hits its final phase. She's to stay hidden until then. He cannot know that she's alive." She knew their plan counted on Klaus staying in the dark.

"Or that you're helping. Are you sure you're going to be able to do this? Klaus is your brother. I know I've wanted to kill my sister about a thousand times since I've turned. I've never been able to."

"Well, Klaus was not my only brother. I had siblings; parents. I had a family. Over the centuries, Klaus hunted them down one by one and he took them from me. He scattered them across the seas where their bodies could not be found."

"You want revenge."

"Sometimes there's honor in revenge. I won't fail you."

"Please don't. Or yet again my death would have been for nothing." She turns and walks away pulling out her cell phone. She debates calling Damon to say goodbye but thinks better of it. She knew he would be able to hear it in her voice that something was wrong and it wouldn't take him long to figure out what she was planning. She couldn't risk him stopping her so she texts him instead but save it as a draft hoping that he would find the find and in return find the unsent message. "Sorry Damon." She says putting away her phone.

She ran as fast as she could to the quarry in time. When she gets there, she saw both Jenna and Elena entrapped in a circle of fire adjacent from each other. Next to them, Jules is on the ground lifeless. She runs from the hilltop down to the bottom where Klaus was with whom she suspects to be Greta, the daughter and sister Luka and Jonas were trying to save.

She was aware that Elena would be able to hear everything she said but she didn't care. "We had a deal." Klaus and Greta both turn to her with Greta stepping up to defend Klaus but Klaus stops her before she could make a more towards her. "If I gave you Elena, Jenna and Jeremy would be safe. I held up my end of the bargain." She points to Elena. "Elena is right there waiting to be sacrificed."

He walks towards her. "Yes well seeing as how the vampire and werewolf I had planned on sacrificing suddenly disappeared I had to make other arrangements. I kind of like the idea of three women, three goddesses being sacrificed at the altar."

"Then take me." She steps up offering herself. Both Elena and Jenna profusely protest that idea. "I'm the one who freed Caroline and Tyler." She glances at Jenna who pleads with her not to do it but she ignores her. "If you should punish anyone, it should be me."

"Well that is a very tempting offer a quite the predicament. Shall we let Elena decide." He points a stake between Alyssa and Jenna. "So, who's it going to be?"

Elena sorrowfully cries, "I can't."

"It's okay Elena." Alyssa assures her with a tearful nod. "I want to do this."

Tears fall down Elena eyes as she makes her decision.

Klaus steps towards Alyssa who looks at him with the hate and disgust that she felt for him but she stands her ground. Klaus watches her with a smug smile as Jenna tries to escape the ring of fire but isn't able to because they ended up flaring up. Jenna cries out for her to run or do something other than just stand there and get herself killed but she doesn't.

She takes deep slow breaths waiting for the wood to pierce her but when it does its in her back. She looks up at him in confusion her face mix with pain. He breaks the stake off and backs away whispering that he has other plans for her.

She's faintly aware of Elena crying out her name as she falls to the ground. She looks to Klaus who walks back over to Greta. "Whenever you're ready, Greta."

Greta begins chanting the next part of the spell which dispels the ring of fire surrounding

Jenna. Jenna looks on, frightened. Elena, teary-eyed, watches on.

"Your turn." Klaus say with a smile walking to her and Alyssa tries to pull out the piece of wood in her chest but it's in too deep and she knows the more she pushes it the closer to her heart it gets. She still keeps trying.

"No, Jenna, no!" She looks up at Elena who attempts to get to Jenna, but the fire around her flares up.

Jenna looks over at her. "It's alright, Elena. I know what I have to do."

After a moment of shared silence between Jenna and Elena, Jenna vamp speeds to Greta and ferociously bites her neck. Greta screams. Klaus vamp speeds over to Jenna and stakes her in the back, pulling her off of Greta, who has fallen to the floor. Jenna gasps and Klaus releases her. Jenna falls to the ground. Elena starts to cry.

"Jenna, no!" Elena screams again and Alyssa fights like hell to pull the stake out letting out a cry in the process.

Jenna looks up at Elena, tears in her eyes and Elena tells her to, "Turn it off. Jenna. Turn it off. You won't be scared anymore."

Alyssa looks up and Klaus flips Jenna over onto her back and hunches over her. Jenna seems less frightened when Klaus stakes her in the heart.

"No! Jenna! No! Jenna!" Elena cries in earnest now. Jenna's body starts to become grey and decayed and Alyssa suddenly goes limp. Klaus releases the stake from his grap and stands up. Jenna lays lifeless on the stone with the stake through her heart.

Greta begins chanting the next part of the spell. Klaus is by her side. Greta pours Jenna's blood into the ceremonial bowl. Elena calls out to Alyssa who takes her eyes of Jenna's body and looks at Elena. The looks she sees in her eyes concerns her and she remembers what Alyssa had admitted to her about having a dark side.

She doesn't have long to think about it because Klaus approaches her taking her eyes of her sister she looks at him.

"It's time."

The circle of fire disappears from around Elena and Klaus extends his hand towards her. Alyssa tries again to grab the stake but still is unable. Elena gets up from the ground and walks past Klaus, ignoring him. Elena makes her way to the altar and looks down at Jenna's body. Klaus follows her up to the altar and grabs Elena's face in his hand. Below them, Alyssa struggles to get up from the ground. Klaus turns Elena's face so she is looking at him

Klaus thanks her and Elena responses by telling him to go to hell.

Alyssa is still trying to get up but continues to struggle and falls back to the ground, too weak to move. Elena stares out, blankly, as Klaus sinks his fangs into her neck and starts to drain Elena of her blood. Alyssa watches on, helplessly. Klaus holds Elena tightly as his eyes starts to sprout more veins. Elena's eyelids flutter and her eyes roll into the back of her head and she dies. Klaus releases her and Elena falls to the ground. Blood drips from Klaus' mouth and the flame in the bowl is extinguished. Elena's body lays lifeless and Alyssa stares at her, sadly, and lowers his head to the ground. Klaus breathes heavily and walks down the stone steps.

"I can feel it. It's happening." Klaus looks up at the full moon. Suddenly, his bones begin to crack and he starts to transform. His eyes are yellow like a werewolf's, but he still has the veins under them, like a vampire. "Yes, yes!"

Suddenly, Klaus is thrown through the air. The flames in the bowl reignite, startling Greta. Greta hears and sees Bonnie coming down the hillside, chanting a spell. Before Greta can react, Damon sneaks up behind her and snaps her neck. He picks up Elena's body.

Bonnie starts chanting walking towards Klaus, "Phasmatos Infero Eseri Gratas, Disasustos Vom, Mas Pro Je Ta Sue Te. Victamas Veras. Phasmatos Tribum, Niha Sue Exilum, Disasustos Vom, Mas Pro Je Ta Sue Te. Levam, Mina Sue Te, Disasustos Vom, Mas Pro Je Ta Sue Te. Phasmatos Veras. Fes Matos Tribum, Mas Pro Tes Unum. Victas Ex Melam, Phasmatos Vanem. Mas Pro Je Ta Sue Te."

Klaus watches her in confusion somewhat afraid. "No! You were dead!"

Bonnie continues to chant her spell. Klaus' body contorts into painful shapes as he screams. Meanwhile, Damon carries Elena's body towards Alyssa and sets Elena on the ground next to her. He kneels down and rips the remainder of the stake out of Alyssa's back. She grunts in pain but offer her hand to Damon who takes it and help her up. She can see the relief in his eyes when he sees that she's still alive.

Before he could start in on his usual rant of how stupid she was she says. "I need you to get Elena out of here!"

He looks at her wearily and she promises him she isn't going to do anything to get herself and says, "I can't leave here until I know that he's dead."

He studies the look on his face and when he's sure she isn't about do anything to get herself killed, he picks up Elena's body and carries her away. She turns to Klaus who's screaming in pain lying against the rocks. Elijah approaches him and Bonnie stops chanting.

Klaus looks at him in wonder. "Elijah?"

"Hello, brother."

Alyssa stands behind Bonnie as Elijah punches his arm into Klaus' chest, grabbing a hold of his heart. "In the name of our family, Niklaus…" Elijah twists Klaus's heart.

Klaus yells out. "I didn't bury them at sea!"

Elijah stunned, stops and looks at him, "What?"

Klaus answers him, "Their bodies are safe. If you kill me, you'll never find them."

"Elijah! Don't listen to him." Alyssa implores him knowing that if he didn't kill him she would have made the mistake of trusting him and having it got Jenna killed and it would have been for nothing.

"Elijah. I can take you to them. I give you my word...brother."

Elijah appears to be having second thoughts about killing his brother.

Bonnie sees that he's having second thoughts and says, "Do it and I'll take you both out."

Elijah reminds her that, "You'll die."

"I don't care."

Elijah looks down at Klaus and back up at Bonnie and Alyssa. Alyssa slight shakes her head and to that Elijah says, "I'm sorry."

Bonnie run towards Elijah and Klaus. Alyssa knows there's no use in it walks towards where Jenna lays and slowly kneel down beside her. Tears silently fall down her eyes as she picks up one of her hands and grab it in both of her hands tucking it under her chin. The tears flow freer now as she apologizes closing her eyes. She leans down and kisses her forehead placing her hand on her stomach.

She hears him before she sees him. Damon walks up after taking Elena back to the house where he left her with Stefan. His eyes are full with sadness and concern and he watches her cry over the only person she felt truly loved her for who she was. She stands up wiping her eyes as she continues to look down at Jenna. Damon takes a step towards her and she looks at him. The look that crosses her face he doesn't like but before he could say anything she vamps speed away.

Stefan walks over to Damon whose waiting for him in the living room of the Gilbert home after checking on Elena. Stefan notice Damon put away his phone and ask, "still no word?"

"No." He had been trying to call Alyssa since she left from the quarry but there was still no answer. He was starting to get worried.

"You're worried." He had worn that look for a long time and he's recognized it in the mirror.

"She just lost the one thing she really cared about Stefan, of course I'm worried."

"You don't have to be." Stefan and Damon turn as Alyssa walks in." She stops so she's standing in the middle of both Salvatore brothers.

Stefan asks, "how are you?" He had to admit that he was just as worried about her

"How am I? Is that serious question?"

"What he means is how are you holding up."

"I know what he means. And I'm fine. People die. It's what they do, especially in this family. I'm used to it."

She catches the look Stefan and Damon gave each other. She knew they were worried about what her reaction might been when she got over the shock and it's the last thing that she needed. There were more important things that needed to focus their attention on and she wasn't one of them.

She had learned from the voice messages that Damon left her that they were preparing a service for John and Jenna. Or rather Damon had compelled someone to dig two graves at the Gilbert family plot that was filling up rather quickly.

She turns and walks upstairs feeling both their eyes on her as she does. Both Elena and Jeremy are in the process of getting dress when she comes up and she walks pass them and to her room shutting the door behind her. She takes her time getting dress letting the hot water run over her. She tries not to feel or think as she stands there letting the water run over her.

She doesn't wash until after the water turns cold and she steps out once she's rinsed off. She goes through the motion of getting dressed. She's fully dressed when Jeremy knocks on the door and she turns from where she has been staring at herself in the mirror to look at her brother.

"Everybody's waiting."

"I'll be down in a sec." She turns away from him and back to the mirror at the black dress that she had wore too many times to count but with no current expiration date she knew she was going to be wearing it a lot.

Jeremy stood in the door watch her with a concern look a moment before turning around and walking away. Even though he wanted to do or say anything to comfort her, he knew that it was best to just leave her alone to sort out whatever feelings she was dealing with in the moment.

She stood there a nearly ten minutes before she grabbed a pair of glasses and met everyone downstairs so they could go to the cemetery. A place she felt she spent too many times in she thought as she walks with Ric, Damon, Bonnie, Elena, Stefan, Jeremy and Caroline to the plot where Jenna and John were buried.

She carries roses in her hand for both Jenna and John as well as her parents. She sat a roses on their grave and step back watching behind her glasses as Elena did the same tearfully. She waits until she's back on her feet to step past Jeremy and Stefan and wraps her arms securely around her. Elena rests her head on her shoulder. The two of them stood staring at the grave in front of them a few moments before they turn and walk away.

She wanted to be there for Elena who she knew got hit the hardest out of siblings with the death of Jenna but was also grieving the father she never knew. But as she walks away from the grave the realness of the situation hits her. Jenna, the last real parent she had was gone. She had lost one of the only two pieces keeping her from giving in to the darkness she fought everyday. Suddenly, she was beginning to fear what Damon and Stefan had been worried about. Her reaction to Jenna's death when it all started to kick in, and it was beginning to.

She left Elena's side when they arrive back to the house and went into the kitchen to help with the food for the guest after the makeshift funeral and stayed there washing dinner and cooking whatever she could get her hands on to them feed them. Stefan gave her the space she needed but when the kitchen started to become flooded with food he decided that what she needed was someone to talk to.

Damon was in about as bad shape as she was so he couldn't expect his help. Neither was she in the right frame of mind to have hear about what was happening to him. But he needed her to focus on something else or the fallout from her crash was going to be bad.

"You know you don't need to do that right now." He says when he sees her washing a load of dishes.

"If I don't do it now, it's just going to end up sitting in the sink and it's going to be harder to clean tomorrow." She avoids eye contact with him as she continues to clean.

"Hey," he grabs her hands and move her away from the dishes.

She snatches her hands away from him but doesn't go back to cleaning. "I know what you're going to say Stefan and I don't want to hear it. I don't want to a pep talk nor do I want to you to try and convince me that everything's going to be okay because its not. Jenna's dead and Klaus werewolf side is free because of us. Because I convinced Elena to trust Elijah. Because of that, Klaus has toxic werewolf venom flowing through his fangs. Yet another way for him to kill us and on top of that he supposedly has some kind of plan for me which doesn't sound good at all."

"Wait. He said that. He said that he has plans for you."

That wasn't supposed to come out but now that it had she knew she couldn't hide it from him. "It's why he didn't sacrifice me when I went to offer up myself up as replacement for Jenna; as a replacement for you. He said that he had some sort of plan for me and at the time I didn't think anything of but now. I don't know."

He pulls out his phone. "I'm calling Damon."

"Stefan no." She places her hands on top of his to stop him. "Damon is just going to go in to offensive mode and go after Klaus before he comes after me and the last thing I need is to lose more people that I care about. So promise me you won't tell Damon or Elena. If Klaus comes after me, whatever his plan is for me, you have to accept it. You all do. We already tried fighting him once and I lost Jenna. No one else needs to die."

He was hesitant with agreeing but she needed him to. She was barely hanging on as it is and she couldn't stand the thought of someone else losing their life because of a decision she made.

"Stefan, promise me."

He ran over his face not wanting to give in. But he saw the desperation in her eyes and he knew that it's what she needed. So he agrees even though he didn't want to. "Yeah. Okay."

She left the kitchen and the small gathering wanting to be anywhere but her house so she leaves and joins Damon. "Can I stay here for a few days? I just can't stay there anymore. It's too depressing." She sets her bag on the floor and turns to him. He's sitting on the single sofa in the conservatory. His attention on the arm laying across the arm of the chair.

It's what drew her attention to what held his. Several black veins protruded from his arm. She didn't even have to ask what it was or what had caused it. She knew, and it filled her with dread because she knew what it meant. He was dying and like with Jenna, she was powerless to stop.

She drops her bag on the floor beside her. "Is that a werewolf bite?" She asks even though she knows the answer to it. A part of her was hoping that he would tell her that it was some other than what she already knew it was. She walks over to him taking his arm in her hands. "When did you get bit?"

He gets up and goes over to the bar to pour him another drink. "When were attempting our daring rescue that Tyler chump bit me."

"Why didn't you tell me? We could have Bonnie working on a way by now." She says despite knowing there was no cure. She was stubborn and wasn't about to let him die.

"We tried that with Rose. There is none."

"This time is different. She has the power of a hundred dead witches. If that power could kill an original I'm sure she can find a way to cure a werewolf bite."

"Can't be done."

"Neither was saving Elena from turning into a vampire but we did it. You just have to be willing to try."

"What if I'm not?"

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. He was giving up without a fight. That wasn't the Damon she knew. "Unbelievable. You get pissed off at Elena for refusing to fight. Angry at me for disregarding my safety and yet you won't even fight for your own life."

"Because there's no point. There is no cure. I'm dead either way. So why not just enjoyed the little time I have left." He raises the glass to his lips and she smacks it away causing it to smash into pieces as it hits the ground.

"You might be willing to accept dying without a fight," she says stepping toe to toe with him, "but I won't. I'm not going to sit her and watch you die."

"Then don't." He grabs the entire bottle this time and walk away.

She turns to him swallowing the lump in her throat. "How can it be so easy for you to give up? How could you be so willing to die?"

He scoffs, "the pot and the kettle."

"Your right." She swipe at the tears feeling this heavy weight in her chest making hard for her to breath. "I did want to die. I was okay with giving up. You know that's what I wanted and were going to let me. So why am I still holding on to a life I never wanted in the first place?"

He drops the nonchalant act and looks at her. Really look at her as she speaks and he isn't liking what he sees.

"Why should I keep pretending that I'm still the same person living the same life when I'm not?" She chuckles darkly and that not so good feeling he has increase. "Hell I'm not even human. So why keep pretending? Why feel the pain of love lost and death when I don't have to? "

He slowly begins to understand what she means. She was going to turn it off.

"It's like flipping a switch. Right?" She had seen Jenna go from being scared to nothing at all and right now feeling nothing was pretty damn attractive. She closes her hands and tries to find that part within her that connects to emotion so she can sever it.

Damn grabs her by her shoulders to stop her. "Don't."

She pushes his hands off her shoulder, "give me a reason not."

He needed to stop her but he knew there wasn't anything that he could say to get her to change her mind. He knew he needed to act fast. He vamps speed over to grabbing her by her shoulders to keep her from attempting it while he thought of something. He went with the first thing he could think of. He kissed her hoping that he could use whatever feeling she had for him. It was low. He knew. But it was the only thing he could think of.

She freezes, being caught of guard. But when she regains her senses, she pushes him away forcefully only to attach herself back to his mouth seconds later. Pushing him against the closest wall, she put all her feelings, both good and bad into that kiss. She wasn't delusional about why he had kissed her. She knew it was only to stop her from switching off her humanity but she gave in anyway. She succumbed to it needing the distraction. She needed to feel something but pain and crippling regret. Most of all, she wanted to forget.

The problem with trying to run away from your problems is that no matter how far you run or how many ways you try to distract yourself, the problems will still be there. Hers were no different.

"I was wondering where you ran of to so fast."

"Worried I was out feeding on some poor unsuspecting soul?" Alyssa replies as she comes down the stairs meeting Stefan at the bottom. "Drink my way through half the town?" She walks past him and over to the bar cart. "That's more Damon style. The only poor unsuspecting soul I've prayed on was you're brother." She pours herself a drink. "But he liked it." She slowly sips on her drink walking towards the fire place.

Stefan follows behind keeping a close eye on her.

"Don't get too excited," she looks over her shoulder at him, "he's still very much in love with Elena. He will be to his dying day." She turns away from the fireplace and walks over to him. "Which is surprisingly sooner than I thought. But you knew that already. Didn't you?"

"You just buried Jenna."

"And you thought you would spare me by not telling me. Now was that you're idea or Damon's?"

His silence is all the answer she needs. "Damon's. Trying to protect me to the very end. Well he's a little late to the party." She downed the rest of her drink. "About two years and five deaths too late. Six if he includes himself but I'm guessing you're working on a way to save him. Except he doesn't want to be saved."

"He doesn't think there's anything that will save him."

"Maybe he's right. Maybe there isn't anything that can save him."

"Doesn't mean we can't try."

"There is no we Stefan. I tried saving the day before and all it did was get Jenna killed. So I'm done. I'm out of the hero business. Especially when the person we would be saving doesn't want to be. Damon's so intent on dying then let him."

"I can't do that."

"Then you're on your own." She sat down her glass and left.

Elena was waiting up for her when she got in. "Stefan had that same look when I saw him. You both can say a lot by saying nothing."

"You saw Stefan?"

Alyssa came in shutting the door behind her. "He was at the boarding house when I left. Which is where I've been this whole time so the streets of Mystic Falls have been safe at least from me. Where's Jeremy?"

"He's asleep."

She nods and makes her way upstairs.

"You know we're going to be okay. Right?"

Alyssa stops at the bottom of the stairs but doesn't turn around. "Maybe for you and Jere it will, but it's not for me." She had lost too much including herself for anything to ever feel right again. "After tonight, everything's going to change." She turns and walks back up the stairs before Elena could question her.

The door to Jenna's room; the room that once belonged to her parents was shut. She stops and lingers outside of the door before moving on and going into her room. `


End file.
